


the stars that shine

by glimmerkeith



Category: The Beatles
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - 1930s, Film Noir, Golden Age Hollywood, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2018-10-29 05:31:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10847460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerkeith/pseuds/glimmerkeith
Summary: The year is 1934, and the Golden Age of Hollywood is in full swing. Paul McCartney is a new actor on the scene, fresh off his debut musical-comedy movie that smashed box office records and charmed the critics. His next role is in a big-budget thriller film co-starring one of Hollywood’s biggest names—a one John Lennon, infamous for his versatile acting ability and leading roles and attitude. It will come down to more than just top billing as the two verbally spar with each other (both in-character and out of it) and harass their fellow actors and crew to the point of distraction. Of course, it’s well-known that a solid way to measure a film’s success is through the chemistry of its leads…which might be less of a problem than anticipated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is my entry for the mclennon big bang 2017! 
> 
> the golden age of hollywood, especially pre-hays code, is one that fascinates me. for those who don't know, the hays code was a strict set of laws about what could and couldn't be shown in hollywood movies--this mostly included cracking down on "moral" behavior such as adultery, homosexuality, drugs and drinking, and other good wholesome american values. in short, it's why married couples are depicted sleeping in separate twin beds in many old pictures and TV shows. it did not start being enforced until around late 1934 or '35, and lasted until about the late 60s, where the standard MPAA film rating system for american pictures was adapted. the "loose morals" displayed in many pre-code pictures, when more could be gotten away with, is both funny and intriguing, ergo the time i chose to set this in. i know a decent amount of film history, but any errors you may catch are entirely mine. (also, it is unlikely that a movie would be filmed in exact sequential order of the scenes/the within-the-movie timeline, but i kept it that way in order to perhaps simplify the action/plot of what is going on there a bit more).
> 
> so far as i know, the movie company empire pictures doesn't exist, but photoplay magazine did for a while--it was a very popular film magazine during the 20s and 30s.
> 
> also, for ambiance...i've been essentially living with [this 1930s playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/122209575/playlist/1fnyrSb8vnZaXuTlKaa9xJ) on spotify!

_“Isn’t Hollywood a dump—in the human sense of the word. A hideous town, pointed up by the insulting gardens of its rich, full of the human spirit at a new low of debasement.”_

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1940

* * *

 

  _"_ _If you’re not at the studio in an hour’s time, you’re on your own when it comes to finding your next role, kid.”_

There wasn’t much that could entice Paul out of bed before eleven o’clock on a morning he was supposed to have off—but a changed screen test time and an irate call from his agent would certainly do the trick. Instead of lounging around, eating a leisurely breakfast, maybe having a couple smokes while he called Jane on the phone, he had only just managed to scramble out of bed and put on some clothes before hastening outside to find a taxi.

He panted out the address of the film studio while wrestling with his coat and briefcase in the backseat of the taxi, and the driver twisted around to squint at him as he climbed inside. “Hey…aren’t you that…you were in that picture—”

Paul righted himself, waiting patiently with a small smirk while the driver tried to work his way through it. “Oh no, but I get that a lot, y’know?”

“It  _is_ you, you’ve got that same voice and everything—I’d recognize that!”

As many people might—there were few actors here under American studios who could boast the same slow, unmistakable drawl of back home in Liverpool. It had concerned the studio executives at first, convinced that it would alienate American audiences more than anything else, but it had proved to be just the opposite—crowds had eaten it up, charmed by that now-distinctive voice. And a cabbie who lived in Los Angeles would certainly be familiar with the faces of any of the current stars.

He was one of those now, the kid from Liverpool who had once queued outside the local theater to catch a glimpse of the world that lay within, that he had so desperately wanted to join. What would that boy who had once gotten a job sweeping up the stage after performances think, if he could see his older self where he was now?

One thing hadn’t changed from those early days of peering out at the actors with wide eyes from the wings off of the stage. The various odd jobs he had held, not to mention his father, had long since instilled in him the chronic feeling to be punctual, if not early, to every appointment. It had won him a great deal of appreciation from exhausted production assistants on the movie set.

But it wasn’t going to be doing him any favors here and now, if he was actually  _late_ to the screen test Eastman had booked for him. In a manner of speaking—he had booked him a time later today, this early afternoon, but it seemed that the studio had elected to do some  _rescheduling._

Traffic was congested, as usual, and Paul couldn’t keep from anxiously checking his watch every fifteen seconds or so. His block had been changed to 10:30, it was now inching towards a quarter past the hour. This simply wasn’t going to work.

“Hey, uh…would you mind pulling over? I’ll just walk from here.”

He paid the driver for his effort, such as it had been, and set off in a light jog towards the Empire Pictures building, no more than a block away. He thought he heard several gasps and glimpsed the turning of heads at his dash down the road, sure he had been recognized, but there was no time to stop and take note of it. Paul paused outside the massive stone building only to check his reflection in a nearby window, finger-coming his dark hair.

The main reception area at Empire was already a flurry of activity, numerous secretaries lined up at their desks to speak to agents, book studio times, arrange for meetings, and a hundred other things besides. Paul was just about to ask a pretty receptionist where Studio G was, when a crisp, familiar voice rang out over the din.

 _“There_ you are—nice of you to make it on short notice.”

Lee Eastman was an American agent who had come across Paul in a theater back in New York, not very long at all after he had first gotten off the boat from Liverpool. He would say to anyone who asked him now that he had seen the potential in a fresh-faced actor with a pair of winsome, soulful eyes, never mind the accent—and had gotten him an audition for _From Me To You,_ a musical-comedy where that voice could melt into song and enchant the whole world.

And it had.

“Sorry, Lee—thought today I’d have a bit of a lie-in, but—”

“But you didn’t. I take it you still know what you’re doing all the same?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ve got the script memorized.”

Nicholas Hurlock was a different sort of character from Charlie Kane, his last role. Charlie was simple, unassuming, a lad from England down on his luck who fell in love with a chorus girl, a Miss Adelaide Winthorp—he could still hear all the lyrics from each plucky song, round wound and wound his mind like a film reel. They burst like technicolor bubbles still, the show tunes and ballads sprinkled here and there to spice things up. It was precisely why something new, something different, sounded far from unwelcome.

 _One-Way Ticket_ had interested Paul ever since Lee had tossed the script his way some time before—a twisting thriller about a seemingly ordinary drifter (Cal Roberts) who is caught up in a tangled web of gang-related conspiracies and secrets from his past, aided on by the character of Nick. He was running from a past too, but coyer, slyer, most definitely stringing Cal along to work toward his own goals.

The dialogue was snappy, the setting was dark and gritty. It was an abrupt turn-around from his last picture, and precisely why his agent had been so eager to line the part up for him. But despite his previous success, there was no guaranteeing things were going to go his way today. In the club of upper-crust Hollywood elite, he was still a newcomer who had just happened to get lucky once.

The sound stage looked like any other Paul had been on before, wide and spacious with a makeshift back alleyway set constructed for a bit of ambiance. Completed with fake mottled bricks and tin garbage cans, the scene for the screen test was put together in a minimalist but still effective way. Already, various assistants were scurrying around like ants, putting the finishing touches on the small set and the equipment and hurrying back and forth from the nearby sound booth. Despite himself, Paul had to give a small smile, any trace of nerves dimming at the familiar setting…this was where he belonged, he had known that the moment he stepped onto his first set.

A severely underfed-looking young man nearly crashed into him on his way back to the sound booth, jumping back at the contact as quick, dark eyes briefly raked over him—and then recognition dawned on his face. “Oh! You’re that…that McCartney guy—”

“The one and only,” Paul affirmed with his most polite smirk, but a commanding bark of “George, why the hell aren’t the mics working right?” spurred the interloper into action, sending him racing for the control booth. Paul watched him go for a moment, then moved with Eastman over to where a small cluster of men were poised in their director-style chairs.

One shorter, slender man got to his feet first, a scarf wound around his neck and dark curls neatly slicked back, a smile already dancing on his face. “Mr. McCartney! I’m Brian Epstein, director of the picture—I must say, we can’t thank you enough for agreeing to change your time. Your screen test is one we’ve been looking forward to.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Paul told him sincerely, and he gave a genuine smile—a handshake wasn’t exchanged, not yet, not when he hadn’t sold them on him completely. Another man, taller and thinner with a long face, remained seated quietly, watching Paul from around a plume of cigar smoke. The assistant, George, came back from the control room to say something in a low voice to the seated man, who gave a tight frown as he tapped some ashes out.

Paul wrenched his gaze away, making eye contact with Brian again, who was speaking once more. “We can go and fetch you a fresh copy of the script, hold on just a minute—”

“Oh, if it’s all the same—I won’t be needing one.”

Brian Epstein’s face creased into an expression of pleased surprise. “No? Well, I see Caldwell’s certainly done a number on you then, eh?”

Paul’s previous director, Vincent Caldwell, had been a tight old bastard who wanted everyone off-book as soon as possible—months of theater training had him well-used to that, memorizing lines was second nature. He nodded, and Brian gestured to the empty set out in front of them.

“Whenever you’re ready then…I believe we’ve got our equipment straightened out from the last go-round.”

The crew assembled themselves, an assistant jotting down the information on the clapperboard before moving himself into place. Lee Eastman had melted into the background, but then, they all would be doing so soon enough—Paul was already stepping onto the set, rolling his shoulders back, impervious to the camera pointed his way. He had the script prepared in his mind, had gone over it a hundred times now, he only needed to turn it on.

He wasn’t Paul McCartney anymore, and he certainly wasn’t Charlie Kane. He was Nick now, a double agent, feeding the hero of the film (yet to be determined) too many lies and not enough truth about a made-up sob story of his past, all with the intent of appearing vulnerable—but not too much.

“Well, as seeing you’ve asked so nicely, I suppose I can throw you a little something. What is there to really know about me? My dad ducked out when I was four, my mother was left to raise me…same old sob story.”

It happened now, as it always did—the many pairs of eyes trained on him seemed to fade into obsolete pinpricks in the dark, hardly there at all, the pointing glare of the camera didn’t intimidate so much as it energized. Even now, with nothing backing him but his own voice and his own body movement, that out of body experience of becoming someone else still struck him, still carried him through the entire monologue. There was nothing else in the world like it.

“…and I don’t see why a man such as yourself needs to know such things, anyway. What do you say we get out of here then?”

It was the last line, the final note to end the monologue on, a come-on offer of delicate temptation, and Paul let it hang in the air for a moment as he moved forward as if in position with an invisible scene partner, the leading man he was subtly trying to entice. He didn’t dare look over at any of the directors until the clapperboard clicked again, and Brian Epstein let out a noticeable breath he must have been hiding.

 _“…well._ I have to say, I’m very…sold. What do you think, George?”

But he wasn’t addressing the slender assistant Paul had ran into earlier, but rather, the fair-haired man next to him still puffing away on a cigar. He had schooled his expression back into something more reserved, but Paul still hadn’t missed the raised eyebrows, however briefly—he was impressed. When he spoke, it was in the clipped, polished tones of a London-born man.

“I think you’re taking a risk, Brian—we could sign one of Empire’s stars instead, you know we’ve as good as written the part of Cal for John, and with Ringo already signed on—”

But he seemed to realize then how unprofessional the conversation in front of Paul really was, and he cut himself short before fixing a polite smile on his face. “Mr. McCartney, my name is George Martin—producer of the film. We’re very pleased that you were able to take the time to audition for us today.”

Paul knew of the name, it was impossible not to in Hollywood circles. He did his best to appear unruffled by the proceedings, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Pleasure was all mine. I’ll, uh…wait to hear back then?”

“Yes, you will,” Brian asserted quickly, making a final note on the notepad he had been frantically scribbling away on the whole time. “Mr. Eastman, I believe we have the contact details—George, show them out, would you?”

He was not referring to his producer this time, but very much the assistant from earlier, who moved quickly to usher him and Lee back outside to the lobby. He didn’t say much, but seemed to be wrestling with the urge to do so, until at the door he finally turned to face Paul and blurted something out.

“Sorry to be a bother, but…can I get your autograph? Only my mom and sister would love it, see. Big fans of your movie.”

One somewhat-disgruntled autograph later, Paul and Lee had bundled back into a cab. There was silence for a few moments, Paul desperately longing for a cigarette, before his agent let out a sharp exhale. “I think that went well. Martin’s tough, but he’s not pulling all the strings here—and you didn’t sound too desperate, which is good.”

“I’m  _not_ desperate,” An affronted Paul insisted, but Lee had a different story—and one not wholly unfamiliar to his client by now.

“Not yet you’re not, but we need to get ahead before that  _does_ happen. You can’t ride on the coattails of one movie smash the rest of your life, certainly not when musicals are on the way out again. You want this role, don’t you?”

“’Course I do!”

“You’ve got more chops than to just stay stuck in the same cycle of films. It’s time people damn well see that.” Lee’s fingers tapped on the seat for a moment, before he gave a small snort. “But Christ, they’ve got Ringo  _Starr_ signed on, they’re not taking any chances…and if they’re pinning down John too, the stakes just go up.”

“John…?”

“Lennon, I presume.”

 _“The_ John Lennon?”

“Oh, yes. Let’s hold our breaths on that one—one of the prize stars in Empire’s constellation, any other studio would hang themselves to have him…but a piece of work on set, I’ve heard. But you could handle that, couldn’t you?”

“I’m sure I could.” And he had to be confident about that, no matter what he really felt—and what was more, there was no guaranteeing he had even gotten the part.

At least until around a week later, when another phone call came in for him at the hotel, and a plumy assistant’s voice rang in his ear.

“Mr. McCartney—we’d be delighted if you could make another trip down to Empire Pictures this afternoon. Brian told me to make it very plain that there’s a movie contract in your future.”

***

 If the set had been a hub of activity on the day of the screen test, it had amplified about ten times over when Paul arrived about two weeks later for the initial wardrobe and make-up testing. All the signing had been done now, hours spent poring over contracts and scrawling his signature here and there on a dotted line to bind himself to the movie and Empire Pictures. Photographers were on hand when he left the studio then, already clicking away, and he read all about his new movie deal splashed in the following morning’s headlines:

_STAR OF ‘FROM ME TO YOU’ SIGNS MOVIE DEAL WITH EMPIRE_

_‘THANK OUR LUCKY STARS’: MCCARTNEY TO APPEAR WITH LENNON AND STARR IN NEW FILM_

_‘ONE-WAY TICKET’ PRODUCTION BEGINS WITH BOX OFFICE SMASH PAUL MCCARTNEY_

Jane had rung him on the phone the other night—his girlfriend was busy touring the UK with her theater company, but she had heard from him earlier about the project and seen the papers herself. “That’s  _wonderful,_ Paul—call and let me know how it’s going then.”

She was busy, preoccupied with her own work, and Paul could hardly blame her for that—he was about to be too. Since they had first met back in a stage production in London, this had always been the dance between them. They had been talking about seeing each other as soon as possible, once Jane’s work was done, but now with Paul’s just beginning…well, he couldn’t think on that for very long. He had business of his own to attend to.

“Well, look who decided to show up.”

Paul had been greeted by George’s drawling voice just outside the studio, smoking a cigarette with his shirt sleeves rolled up, but his smirk hadn’t been a malicious one. He was early today, he knew that much, and George seemed almost surprised to see him so soon.

“Hope that’s not  _too_ much of a shock to you.”

“Oh, not at all…we were expecting you. Most of ‘em like to take their time to get here, though.”

“Must be I’m not ‘most of them’, then.”

“Mm. Guess not.”

But he had led him back to the set all the same, which was still under construction but definitely coming along. Buildings actually resembled buildings, city streets well underway, and more still being worked on over the sound of buzzing saws and hammers. They’d be going on location for other scenes, Paul knew, but the fake buildings looming above them definitely did their job.

He was ushered back into the wardrobe department, where racks upon racks of costumes were hanging up—mostly suits, and slacks, shirts, and jackets in a variety of cuts and styles. The smell was overwhelming too, a combination of shoe shine for the various footwear lined up in cubbies, leather, and something chemical. It was nearly tempting to run your hand down the row of material, but Paul resisted the urge as George left him when several women bearing tape measurers and clipboards came hightailing over to him.

He obligingly stood at attention while they took all his measurements, making polite small talk as they chattered away. “You’ll need to go outside for the photographs then, dear—we’ve got the wardrobe they requested all ready.”

Nick’s wardrobe was supple and characteristically understated, a medley of sweater vests and slightly-wrinkled shirts under dark jackets—the better to blend in, to look inconspicuous, until the situation no longer called for it. As a result, it was up to the person wearing them to truly sell the look.

The wardrobe workers wheeled the rack of clothes out as Paul followed along, dressed in his first costume for the shoot. Along the way, they ran into more staff members from the same department, carrying items such as boxes of hats and shoes, dragging more hangers along, and most of them buzzing around one man in particular—whom Paul recognized right away when they clapped eyes on each other.

“McCartney, isn’t it?” Ringo Starr’s grin was bright, tone easygoing and friendly as he moved forward. In person, he was shorter than Paul had imagined him from his movies, and his eyes were a startlingly bright blue that the black and white picture couldn’t entirely convey. He’d been in a string of successful action and western films, his presence in this new project signified a large movie deal as Lee had predicted—but he seemed rather approachable despite his reputation as he moved forward to shake Paul’s hand.

“Loved  _From Me To You,_ if that means anything to you. Not exactly my style, but great film, just great. Was dead pleased to hear you’d be in this picture too.”

Paul couldn’t help but grin as he returned the handshake, and almost more so at a more familiar kind of voice reaching his ears—in a sea of American accents, someone else from his home country made a welcome change. It sounded so different in the talkies, where a versatile voice ability often left him speaking with different accents to mask his thick natural one…and a stage name led to the concealing of the far more commonplace Richard Starkey.

“Not as much as I was with you. I’ve seen all your films, I know who I’m working with here.”

At that, Ringo gave an appreciative laugh. “That’s reassuring to know! Don’t mind me this time around, then…it’s my first crack at a villainous role.”

The main antagonist, Victor Prince, worked for a criminal organization opposite of Nick’s, and seemed to spend much of the script ordering hits on people and trying to hunt down the principle characters. Every role Paul had ever seen Ringo in consisted of a good-natured and typically clean-cut sort of hero, a cowboy out west, never someone shrouded in mystery and danger like he was going to be now. Looking into his open, friendly, face, it was almost hard to believe—but then, Paul rather had something to prove himself.

“I expect I’ll be seeing you on set then very shortly, my trailer’s the one—” But Ringo stopped, cut his own self off as he peered to something behind Paul, then gave a soft chuckle. “Oh, bloody hell. Here comes trouble.”

“Well, well, if it isn’t my brand new co-stars! Descended from on high, to mingle with us riff-raff.” The nasally, flat, Midwestern voice managed to still be distinct—Paul was already bracing himself by the time he turned around.

Anyone who had ever opened up a film-related publication, or even the regular newspaper, or who had just glanced outside a marquee once, would be able to recognize John Lennon on sight. Tall but not overly so, he still seemed to take up quite a bit of space in any scene he was in—or now, in person on the sound stage. His hair was a rich auburn in real life, outside of photographs, but the beaky nose centered in a striking, angular face remained the same. No one could call him well and truly handsome, but _arresting_ was a word that came to mind.

Stupid, really—perhaps not so much so when critical hazel eyes swept over Paul, giving him an obvious once-over. When Paul didn’t immediately stammer out an introduction or hurry to get away, when he met his gaze head-on, the corner of John’s mouth lifted a little.

It was still bizarre, to see somebody in person who Paul had only ever seen on a screen before. Almost like him, John had come out of nowhere, featured as an extra in several silent films before talkies became all the rage—and then his quick, snide voice turned into the butter to the industry’s bread. One would need more than two hands to count how many pictures he had been in, from early vaudeville-style slapstick to 1932’s _Garden of Beasts,_ an action-adventure thriller set in Africa that Paul had spent some of his wages to see. He looked a bit different out of the tight khaki trousers and boots he had worn for that role.

“’Lo, John,” Ringo greeted him, with a degree of familiarity Paul didn’t share. “All finished up here for the day, then?”

“Not quite, as it so happens—I gave some poor bastard the slip just a bit ago—”

“Mr. Lennon!” George came barging through the line of wardrobe assistants, looking highly put-upon and like he wanted to seize John by the arm like a wayward child. “Please, we’ve got a few more photographs to take for the test—”

“Oh, beat it, kid—nothing wrong with seeing the new crowd. We’re going to be awfully close over the next month or so, aren’t we?”

But he looked right at Paul as he said it, eyebrows raised in a nearly challenging gesture, and Paul felt compelled then to make the first move, to stick his hand out in an almost aggressive gesture. “Paul McCartney. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.”

“Save it for the gossip rags, son—you’re going to need it.” But John accepted the handshake, his grip firm and lingering before he let it go. George was whispering in a furious, terse tone to some of the wardrobe assistants, but John seemed serenely oblivious to their presence around him. A roll of a measuring tape draped around his neck like a scarf, as if he had been in the middle of a fitting before he started to pursue interests elsewhere.

“I try to avoid that sort of thing in general—though your name’s popped up in them a fair bit.”

John’s grin was almost feral at that. “Oh, all that…can’t believe everything you hear, can you? Though said rags have got nothing but good things to say about _you,_ Mr. McCharmly, or so I’ve read. People ate that last film of yours up.”

“Because it was good,” Ringo chimed in, his voice directly easygoing to the somewhat challenging note in John’s tone. “You saw it didn’t you, John?”

“Me? No, I think it was kiddies’ day at the theater when I tried to see it, the place was too crowded—ah well, we know you were hitting the right audience then, don’t we?”

A direct snub—Paul stiffened a little at the barbed remark, but molded his face into an affable smile. “I’m glad people were still going to see it—a full theater’s still better than an empty one, wouldn’t you agree?”

A volley back of his own—John’s last film, _Night Visions,_ a bad sort of black humor picture featuring a pair of beat cops, had not fared particularly well either critically or financially. It was certainly an exception and not the rule when it came to John’s glittering career, but it was enough of a blow.

And he knew it had hit its mark when John’s snide smirk froze in place, when he studied him for a moment longer—the tension was broken by George, who seemed to have had well enough of this.

“Mr. Lennon, we’re not finished yet—if you would just come with me, we’ll get the rest of wardrobe done.”

“Yes, I…guess we’d better. I’ll see the pair of you later on set.” John’s last remark was directed at Paul and Ringo alike, but his gaze lingered on Paul a moment longer before he allowed George to chivvy him off. There was a beat, and then Ringo gave a quick laugh.

“Well, that probably could have gone better—but that’s typical John for you. He’s more likely just showing off.”

“Is that what that was?” Paul asked acidly, but elected not to say any more on the subject…he had only just met the man, and first impressions were often wrong ones. They’d have to be working closely together over the next odd month or so, whether John liked it or not.

“Mr. McCartney?” One of the assistants finally spoke up hesitantly. “Er…we’d really better go do the wardrobe test now. Brian wants to see it.”

“Oh, right you are. Well, Ringo…goodbye for now.”

“Be seeing you. Only next time, I can’t promise I’m going to be so nice,” Ringo teased, a hint to his sinister character, and Paul tipped him a wink before he went off with the wardrobe assistants.

“You’d hardly be the first.”

He followed the assistants to his wardrobe test, posing for photograph after photograph in his various costumes, pausing every now and again to allow for adjustments, pins stuck to hold loose material in place, measuring tape wound around him time and time again. It was easy to smile, to pout, to do whatever the camera needed him to do—especially with Brian’s look never far, that pleased expression like a cat in the cream. He was getting his movie, and the stars that he wanted…he had every cause to appear like that.

Would that everyone could be the same.

***

The previous confrontation meant that Paul arrived for his day on set with a slight amount of trepidation, much as he tried to berate himself that such a thing was quite stupid. He had known going into it, hadn’t he, that he would need to be proving himself over and over again? He was relatively new on the scene, had only had a recent big break off of his first debut film, and here he was among seasoned actors and other professionals in the field—maybe it was only understandable that John, at least, hadn’t warmed up to him right away.

It was one little remark. They had weeks of work yet to do, there was plenty of time for things to change. By the time of his own arrival, John had already been due for several days of other work with the script, filming the initial opening scenes with his character alone—perhaps some time getting settled into the rhythm of a new picture had settled him down, caused him to ease up a little.

He didn’t see him initially, instead, he spent some time getting set up in his trailer. It was roomy enough, complete with simple furniture for a living room, a miniature kitchen, and a bedroom and washroom off in the back. He had enough space to haul in his record player and his library of music, which was ultimately going to be one of the more important things—the rest had always taken a bit of a secondary place. There were other little things, touches here and there, to make it seem a little more homey, such as family photographs (one he cherished in particular was that of himself, his younger brother Mike, and their mother, on holiday by the sea) and various decorations (proper curtains, for one thing) that he and Jane had shopped for once, in order to spruce up the last apartment he had been living in.

It wasn’t much—and it certainly wasn’t anything stately or grand, no matter how much money his last picture had made him. But it would do for now, until he could put down permanent roots in this town, this city of stars and shining lights.

Paul arrived, as usual, early for his call time, able to skip wardrobe and makeup as they were simply going over the script today—it would take some time to ease into other parts of the production. He was greeted warmly by various workers around the set, some sections of which were still in production, before he finally made it to one of the studio rooms where the day’s work was going to begin.

There were already a few people milling around in the spacious room devoid of much except a circle of chairs and assorted cameras, Brian and George Martin among them, poring over some papers on a table while they had morning tea.

“Good morning!” Brian greeted him brightly, a warm smile already brightening his face, and Paul had to return it as he edged forward. “George—scripts, please!”

Once again, it was his shabbily-dressed assistant that the command was given to, not the stern-faced man at his side still reading over the documents out in front of them. George moved to the task, heading towards the stack of bound scripts piled on one table, and plucking one from the top that he moved to pass along to Paul.

“Oh, thank you.”

George shot Paul a slight look at the pleasantry—as if surprised to hear something like that coming from him. But he let it go as Paul flipped open the copy of the script, screenplay by Neil Larson, skimming through the lines that were Nick’s, that were his…already, just mouthing some of them aloud, he could almost hear his new gilded voice, the silver tongue that came with the character. He wouldn’t learn just his own lines, of course, but likely even that of his scene partners, all of them, so he’d never miss a beat—

Slowly, more people began to trickle in, most of them more behind the scenes workers—Paul had struck up some idle chatter with Brian, as George Martin checked his wrist watch and made a small chiding sound. “It’s ten till, Brian—he should be here.”

“He will be,” Brian assured him, though not sounding wholly convinced…his fingers tapped nervously on the tabletop, and Paul looked round only to realize that they were talking about John, who had yet to make a scheduled appearance.

“He had better be,” Martin muttered under his breath. But ten minutes slipped by, nine o’clock coming and going, and the producer looked grimly unsurprised, almost satisfied, as he fixed Brian with a steady gaze. “Well?”

“I’d…well…George! Go and see if John’s mucking around outside or the like,” Brian instructed their production assistant, who seemed grateful to leave the increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere in the studio and flee to the outdoors. Paul cleared his throat, and Brian pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment.

“I’m quite sorry, Paul—if John takes too long, we’ll be glad to arrange for a stand-in.”

“Right. Er…no trouble at all.”

But it soon became clear what it was going to be after all—George had turned up empty-handed after his scouting expedition, and the producer began pacing the floor in tight circles. Brian looked as if he wanted that same floor to open up and swallow him whole instead, and more than one assistant was starting to mutter to each other by the time Paul thought he really ought to just speak up and see if they could move ahead anyway—when the studio door burst open with a bang, and John came striding in.

He was dressed properly, at least, but his hair looked mussed enough to suggest he had only just rolled out of bed. He already held a copy of the script in his hands, which he waved around as he marched over. “Sorry about that—lost track of the time, had a late night out and all.”

John’s roughish grin spoke volumes, and a grim-faced George Martin spoke up first. “I don’t care what you were doing last night, you’re late _now._ Almost twenty minutes! Don’t make a habit of it.”

“As long as Mr. Larson doesn’t make a habit of me needing to do _this.”_ So saying, John opened his script for all to see, flipping though it enough for them all to glimpse how here, there and everywhere—it seemed like every other page or so—lines had been struck through with a pen, notes scribbled in the margins, even abstract little doodles sprinkled around like bread crumbs. He’d obviously had a hold of his copy for a while, and Brian exhaled sharply through his nose.

“John…what have you done this time?”

“I’ve made some notes, that’s all,” John said defensively. “Just some changes, some things could obviously be better—you know, that whole ‘Holly’s a sweet girl’ speech, it seems a bit out of character. Cal’s never going to let on that he likes anyone, and furthermore, what’s he doing driving that kind of car?”

Some of the staff tittered to each other, but Brian seemed perfectly unfazed—almost as if he had expected it. “Oh, John, have you gone and dissected the whole thing then?”

“Parts of it, yeah. Oh, don’t worry, we can go through it and you know I’ll be making most of it up as I go along.”

Paul raised his eyebrows, almost unnerved by the display, but George Martin just waved him on. “Yes, well, perhaps we can get to your _edits_ later, Mr. Lennon—for now, let’s hear the script as it’s meant to be read.”

“Too right, too right. Happy to oblige.”

He turned to face Paul then, giving him a bit of a sardonic grin. “Hello again, Paul. I suppose we’d better get started then, hadn’t we?”

“I suppose we better,” Paul agreed simply, almost coolly, shifting his position as if to put some distance in between them—but John didn’t seem to mind as he moved to slouch apart from him, and the crew began readying the cameras. It was strange, Paul thought as he looked over his lines one more time, but he had the distinct impression that John’s gaze wasn’t doing the same thing and reading over his own…but rather, that those eyes were resting on him instead.

“Take one…action!”

The clapperboard clicked, and they were off—Paul let himself exhale once before he began the scene, which would really be set in a bar after Cal had fled from a group of sinister men who were really Victor Prince’s goons. John would walk in and take a seat at one of the stools, pause for a moment as he looked around, and then ask his opening line—

“What’s a fella got to do to get a drink around here, huh?”

Paul’s turn—he looked up from his script, eyebrows quirked, a coy smirk turning up his lips. “A face like that certainly isn’t going to help matters.”

John glanced up, eyes peering over the top of his script to lock onto Paul’s. “Maybe one like yours will, then.”

A cue for a bartender to arrive as Paul turned and lifted his hand in indication of fishing for a drink—for now though, it had to be let go. “A gin and tonic, on the rocks. If I’m buying you a drink, I think a guy’s got the right to know what brings you in here.”

And so it went, surprisingly fairly smoothly for some time onward—until they reached the part where John’s modifications began. The lines no longer matched up with what was recorded in the script, and Paul had to keep clipping along as smoothly as he could despite any obvious discrepancies and the constant halting to make amends, at least until they reached one snag in particular.

It was supposed to be the end of their scene here—the cue for them to take their leave and exit the bar, heading back out into the night. Cal made the suggestion that he depart lest the men who were after him find him again, and Nick was meant to agree—a rather tame exchange, all things considered.

Not so the way John had edited it. What became a simple enough recommendation that they exit the place soon turned to something of another nature entirely.

“I think I’d better scram. It can’t be much longer now before those big uglies pick up the trail again.”

“It’s awful lonely out there,” Nick responded. “Sure you won’t need some company for the road?”

Cal lifted an eyebrow. “Is that an invitation?”

“Oh, not necessarily…it can be whatever you want it to be.”

“So maybe that’s what I want it to be.”

That was the wrong line—Cal was initially meant to turn down the offer and head off on his own, he’d only run into Nick several pages later, but John had completely shifted the direction of the scene with one simple turn.

His scripted line would no longer work in context, but he could still choose to go forward with it if he so wanted. He heard a shuffled page and a muttered behind him, clearly the directors less than pleased with the sudden change, so maybe now was the time to insist on a do-over—but in theater training, one was taught to improvise. If something went wrong in a live production, if someone flubbed a line, you didn’t get a chance to start over again, you simply had to run with it—and so Paul rose to that occasion.

“Don’t mind if I do—we can go if you want. At the risk of sounding intrusive, I’m going to guess you make for more interesting company than some of the cats here.”

If John was surprised that Paul had taken the bait, he didn’t show it—but kept moving along himself. “Don’t blink too fast or you’ll miss it, kid. And don’t try and flatter me—it’s never done anyone ever favors before.”

“First time for everything, isn’t there?”

“So they tell me. I’ve never been a man inclined to change.”

“I won’t hold my breath then. But you’d better do the opposite—with Prince and his crowd out there, you’ve got better things than me to worry about.”

“Cut, cut!” Brian’s bracing voice rang out over it, jarring Paul from the world they’d been weaving in between them—what he had done with John. There’d hardly been a beat in between any of their exchange of dialogue, just quick, rapid-fire returns. For as exhilarating as they had been with even just a small bit of work, he had a feeling it could have really gone on for much longer, that tricky game that was feeding off of one another. But now that it was over, the spell broken, he wrenched his gaze from John, sudden heat in his face, to look towards Brian for an admonishing.

The director, however, seemed strangely delighted, that smile back on his face again. “Well…John, for as carefully as I wish you would stick to the script sometimes, I must say…I liked where that was going. It’s something a little different, no? And the energy! It’s all but cracking, George, wouldn’t you say?”

George Martin had arched a thin brow as he scribbled something down on a piece of paper, and he looked up from it then. “Let’s just see if lightning can strike in the same place twice. I want to hear it again, from the top. I’ve got the changes all written down here.”

Paul’s pulse seemed to pick up as he nodded, licking his lips for a moment as he dared to peek back at John—who had a small, almost lazy half-smile on his face. “How it’s done,” He mouthed at him, and a white-hot feeling raced up Paul’s spine.

John’s modifications had been annoying, his bit of improve undoubtedly a poorly-disguised challenge that the petty side of him hoped he had risen to—but the truly grating thing was that it was all _good._ They hadn’t casted him for nothing, after all, his name wasn’t immense because of a role as Townsperson No. 3 in some silent horror film, Paul was just beginning to dance with what was really there.

The question would be if he could keep up with that in the weeks that were to follow—today was only their first day together, just a taster of what was to come. He had to be sure of one thing, at least, he vowed to himself as a vision of John’s slow, smug half-smile seemed to etch itself into his brain…he couldn’t give him any cause to doubt him.

***

It was only Paul’s third week, back on set for another run-through of the script, when an invitation came through that he hadn’t wholly been expecting. It had been another long day of working with John, Paul often wanting to stop, go back, and run through certain lines once more that his scene partner reacted to in usually one of two ways—surprisingly complicit, or with plenty of belly-aching about it. He couldn’t be sure sometimes who looked like they wanted to strangle John more already from their perch in their chairs, Brian Epstein or George Martin. And his own habit of being a stickler, wanting to run lines again that the directors hadn’t called for, certainly seemed to take them aback as well.

But they seemed willing to allow it. It was preferable, after all, to John’s own variation of meddling.

“Paul! How’s your first couple of weeks been?”

He turned only to see Ringo approaching him, an affable smile on his face, and the sight of something so friendly was a welcome one. The honest answer was that the initial stretch hadn’t  been the smoothest, not in the least because of his rather prickly co-star. John seemed to have a selective memory besides, recalling only what lines seemed to tickle his fancy while the rest he just left to chance and improvised.

But it was early on yet—and Brian didn’t seem in much hurry to berate him an awful lot. Perhaps there was still time, but Paul wasn’t holding his breath on it. Nevertheless, it would do him little good to voice such small gripes, and he made his voice sound as pleasant as possible.

“Oh, we’re coming along fine…it’s early days, y’know? Excitement doesn’t really happen till we’re actually on the set.”

“Won’t hear me argue with that,” Ringo said companionably, then lifted his wrist to check the time on the watch there. “Say, how about we all do dinner tonight? Meet at my trailer round about seven o’clock? I know this spot called The Crown, the food’s incredible, to say nothing of the drinks there.”

It wasn’t much in Paul to decline a polite invitation, even with his own set of manners, but a part of him felt suspicious of the inclusive ‘we all’ statement—just who else was Ringo planning to invite? Two and two didn’t make five, and he could likely piece it together…but when he hesitated even a moment, Ringo gave him a swift poke in the chest.

“Ah, don’t try and reject me now—when we get into the real swing of things here, I won’t be saying such lovely things to you anymore. I’ll be the villain, remember? Give me a chance for one more agreeable time.”

Paul gave a grin at that. “Oh, all right…I’m not going to turn that down, ‘specially if you’re the one paying.”

Ringo was hardly fazed by this remark at all—in fact, he seemed rather cheered by it. “Brilliant! I’ll see you at seven o’clock sharp, then…best not be late.”

“I don’t make a habit of it,” Paul responded, and that much was true.

“Oh, and wear something nice, would you? The Crown has a habit of kicking out anyone they suspect of being riff-raff.”

“Wouldn’t want that now.”

Fortunately, Paul had brought plenty of fancier clothes with him just in case he needed them, certainly not anything too elegant as he might sport to the movie’s premiere—but a decent suit all the same, one that fit him well. Studying himself once in the mirror before he left, it was nearly impossible not to hear his father Jim’s voice reminding him that appearances mattered, that everywhere he went he had to make a good impression.

Ringo’s trailer was located in a different section of the back lot, and just judging from the outside appearance, a far grander affair than was Paul’s—it was certainly larger, at least. He only had to knock on the door once before it swung open, and a similarly-attired Ringo ushered him in.

“Come in, come in! We’re just waiting on John now, no surprises there.”

“Not at all,” Paul agreed with that somewhat acidly, before stepping inside. They weren’t alone, already, a couple girls he recognized from the set were here too, wearing evening dresses and sipping drinks. They smiled and waved when they clapped eyes on Paul, who returned the gesture before glancing around. Although not lavishly decorated, Ringo’s trailer was furnished with rich suede and cut-glass lamps, not to mention memorabilia from several pictures he had been in—Paul was slightly amused to see more than one framed movie poster lining the walls.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take very long at all for John to make his appearance, a sharp rap coming at the door a few minutes later just as Ringo was finishing mixing a drink for Paul. “The night beckons us onward!” John declaimed dramatically when he came barging in shortly thereafter. “Come, give me your hands if we be friends.”

The girls, Clara and Peggy, giggled at that, while Paul gave a small snort. “Now we’re giving Shakespeare a run for his money—interesting that you can actually be on time when dinner’s concerned.”

“Or when drinks and pleasant company are concerned,” John retorted mildly, though his waggling eyebrows spoke otherwise. “That doesn’t rule you out then, does it?”

Paul bit back the retort that darted to his tongue then, reminding himself to keep it controlled, but Ringo helpfully interjected himself in the middle of things anyway.

“Oh, let’s not start any of that, now…come on, I’ll have the car brought round, we’ll be on our way.”

The car turned out to be a brand new Rolls-Royce, and with a driver in front, it was clear that the ample room in the back was meant for all of them.

Even with the decent space, it was cramped quarters inside the interior of the car with the five of them all together. As Ringo leaned forward to give the name to the driver, Paul found himself wedged in between the window of the car on one side, and somehow, John on the other. Even through the layers of their jackets, he could feel a trace of the body warmth and solid weight next to him.

“Budge along, there,” John instructed, nudging him with his hip, and Paul could only further flatten himself to make room. If they happened to pick anyone else up on their travels, they’d find themselves in some tight conditions indeed.

As long as there were pretty girls (or indeed anyone) present, John seemed perfectly occupied with them, and they with him—and it was easy to see why. When he wanted to, John sparkled with an easy, charming wit, keeping the conversation going all the drive to the restaurant. Peering out the window, Paul could see that the sidewalks were reasonably crowded for this time, the night life just beginning to slowly unfurl from the light of day and take to the streets and the bars and the clubs. Neon lights from signs flashed up above, advertising cigarettes, stockings, and expensive alcohol again.

And of course, in LA, there had to be movie posters and signs. Some were enormous, taking up whole front sections of their glittering marquees, promoting monster and horror films with a ghoulish figure climbing out of a swamp and a lovely girl screeching in fright, adventure stories with men exploring through a tangled jungle, or breathtaking-looking romances with a pair of painted lovers passionately embracing in a red sunset. Names and titles screamed from the top of them, a blurring whirl of color and stories, and it was exhilarating to know that in just a short time, his own film would be going up to join the galaxy of them.

Well. His film, and that of the people in the car with him too. Who would almost certainly be getting top billing, come to think of it. He remembered something about that in his contract—he wasn’t yet senior enough to warrant the prime slot at the heap of the pile. Which was obviously fine.

As the car began to slow to a halt, it was plain to tell that their arrival had been anticipated, if not somewhat foretold—just outside the brownstone restaurant, a crowd of eager-looking people was beginning to assemble, making no move to go inside but rather peering hopefully up and down the street…clearly anticipating something, or several someones.

Ringo looked out the window and gave a short chuckle, clearly hardly surprised. “Well, I’ll be damned…they beat us here anyway. Word gets around when you try to make reservations in this town.”

“There was your first mistake,” John remarked, leaning back in his seat. “Just showing up unannounced helps the ship run a little smoother sometimes.”

“There’s nothing doing but bracing yourself for it, is there?” Paul asked, as the car pulled up to the sidewalk and the driver got out—inviting more of the hoards to crowd over their way.

John gave him a snide look, as if silently asking if he was quite sure any of the people here were queuing up to see  _him_ specifically, but for once kept the smart remark to himself. “Ready when you are then,” Peggy spoke up, giving her blonde curls one last fluff before the door clicked open.

It wasn’t difficult stepping out of the car, but making their way across the pavement to the restaurant doors proved challenging as within moments, all the gathered people began to crowd them with shouts of some name or another—and in the thick of it, there came a blinding flash as a camera bulb popped.

“Mr. Lennon! John, over here—”

“Ringo, please, just a minute, I’ve got a piece of paper  _somewhere—”_

It was a mob scene, but not an overwhelming one at that—the girls tittered as Paul was recognized too, as he was soon accosted himself, and in particular by a gentleman in a fedora and carting around the camera that had caused the flash.

“Mr. McCartney! Norman Powell here, _Photoplay_ magazine. We can’t say how excited we are for the upcoming film—got a quote about how it’s coming along? You and Mr. Lennon playing nice now?”

“Oh, y’know…it’s early days yet, but I think things are going quite well.” Paul had to foist that grin on his face, but a little white lie meant nothing, especially in the face of the press.

“Excellent, that’s what we like to hear…got any more to say?”

But there came a tug on his arm, from Ringo who had managed to extract himself from the crowd and was indicating the opening doors to the restaurant, and Paul knew it was time to excuse himself or he could very well be swamped out here for a while.

“The picture’s coming along great. I hope everyone comes out to see it, they won’t be disappointed.”

With that in mind, he turned to follow Ringo inside, John and the girls coming along just behind them. The interior of the restaurant was lit with a soft golden glow and the dinner talk was kept down to a quiet murmur, a direct contrast to the excited chatter and scuffling from outside. Tiffany chandeliers hung from the ceiling, gleaming on the rich carpets and all the tables and chairs made from a lacquered dark wood. Clearly, Ringo didn’t shirk when it came to treating people to dinner, and he spoke to the maîtres d’ in a low voice now, who beckoned them to follow him to a more private corner of the establishment in the back.

“This is cozy,” John said sardonically, but slid into place along the curved padded bench that bordered the large table. The girls took to either side of him, leaving Paul and Ringo on the ends, and their host made himself quite busy with the wine list—for a time.

“Anyone know any French?” Ringo joked aloud, waving the list. “I can’t pronounce half of this without coming off a fool.”

“A little,” Paul said agreeably, and reached to take the menu off his hands. “We had to learn a bit for the stage. Everyone likes a good French play.”

“I know a couple of handy phrases myself,” John chimed in. “Mostly how to ask for the bathroom and if someone would like to get a room for the night.”

The girls giggled at that, and Clara swatted at his arm. “Oh, John, stop! I’m starving…let’s go ahead and order something.”

“Fine idea.”

The food was delightful, a Waldorf salad followed with seafood like lobster and shrimp cocktail served with buttery rolls—and of course, a strong, rich white wine. Eating as they were in an elegant restaurant with soft piano music playing from a dinner musician, it was nearly easy to forget the iron-fingered reality that lay lurking just outside the doors…until the conversation inevitably turned around to it.

“It’s a bit silly, isn’t it?” Peggy was the one who finally remarked it first, dabbing at her red lips with a cloth napkin. “We’re in here eating this expensive food…and all across the country, people are lining up outside the soup kitchens just for a scrap of a meal. Why, I know there are some even right here in this city!”

“They’re probably serving leftover caviar and champagne,” John remarked dryly.

“That’s hardly the point,” Paul said, turning a shrimp over with the tiny fork that somehow looked ridiculous now. “What’s the unemployment rate at these days? Your president’s only on the radio about it every other week or so.”

“I’m sure I don’t give a damn what Roosevelt is up to,” John said, and Paul leaned forward a little.

“So it’s not something you concern yourself with then? So long as you’ve got the _fresh_ caviar and champagne, what does it matter where it goes in the end?”

Ringo gave a little cough, clearly disliking where the situation was going. “Look, the last I understood it…things are picking up a little. There’s no sense in getting all short about what we can afford to have—god, if we don’t bloody lose it all. At the end of the day, we’re doing work like anyone else is, aren’t we?”

Paul thought of his father back in England, of the long nights he would spend up waiting for him to make him a cup of tea when he returned home, with the last of their electricity burning away in the kitchen light. Jim would return from his relentless days at the factory where he was an inspector on the line, clothes rumpled and face lined with grime and sweat, barely able to sink into the rickety chair that his son would pull out for him.

And they had been lucky enough—at least a roof was over their head every night, and they never went hungry. But Paul remembered thinking over that troubling notion on more than one occasion, knowing that there were plenty others out there who were not so fortunate…and making a silent vow to never find himself in that same situation if he could help it. He’d never have to wonder where his next meal was coming from, if it came at all.

Now, he was tired after a long day of going over scripts and running around a sound stage. Sometimes when he closed the eyes, the popping flash of a camera still burst there. But never once would he try to think he was doing the same kind of work as his father had.

“No,” He had to say bluntly. “I’m not sure that we are.”

“We’re doing something different,” John argued, lolling back in his seat. “I grew up dirt-poor in Iowa, and let me tell you, there was nothing I liked better than sticking my nose in a book or curling up by the radio to hear a show when that came crashing in. I wanted nothing else but to _escape,_ and those stories gave that to me…at least for a little while.”

“So it’s good, then, to make people wish they were somewhere else?”

“It’s good to help them forget their troubles for a little while,” Ringo said simply, but it seemed that the more heated tone of the conservation had taken a toll on him—he set his own napkin and silverware down, and got up from the table. “If you don’t mind, I’m excusing myself to the loo. See if you can find your way down off the high horse a little by the time I’m back.”

The girls made their excuses to leave shortly thereafter too, evidently having spotted a mutual friend of theirs across the restaurant space, and Paul watched them go feeling oddly sullen. John swished his drink around and took a long swig before nodding in the direction Ringo had disappeared in. “Ah, don’t mind him…doesn’t like to think unpleasant thoughts for very long, is all.”

“And I suppose you do?”

“’Course I do. Why d’you think I became an actor?”

“It couldn’t have been for the money, could it have? Or whatever you called…that _escapism?”_

“Didn’t say it didn’t come with other perks. Stepping into someone else’s skin for a bit, even if it’s just pretend…if that doesn’t appeal to you, I’d say you’re in the wrong profession. ‘Course, you were mostly playing yourself in that last picture, weren’t you?”

He leered over the rim of his glass, and Paul did his best not to appear ruffled, ignoring the slight in favor of the real topic at hand. “I do it because I enjoy it. Because I work at it. Some of us come from nothing to be something any way that we can.”

“And isn’t that the truth.” There was a brief pause, and then Paul was the one to speak again.

“I never…knew one part about you. That bit about your childhood in Iowa,” He admitted, and John gave a barely-there smirk as he traced his finger around the rim of his glass, causing it to emit a dull whine. He had lovely hands, Paul distractedly couldn’t help but note, all long, boney fingers like an artist’s or piano player’s.

“I’ll wager there’s a lot you don’t know about me, McCartney.” He tossed some of his drink back, then made a gesture as if to get up. “But the night’s still young—and frankly, I can think of better company. Don’t mind if I see myself off, do you?”

“Not at all,” Paul responded. “I’ll be seeing enough of you tomorrow as it is.”

“That’s the spirit,” John commended him, then headed out to leave the restaurant with no one else in tow. Before he departed, Paul saw him stop one of the wait staff and say something to him—the man seemed puzzled but he nodded, and John slipped a bill into his gloved hand before taking his leave.

Paul lingered there for a little while longer, unsure just what he felt like doing or where he wanted to go. Ringo didn’t seem at all surprised to hear that John had cut out early, and when he and the girls finished their drinks and moved on, Paul simply went with them. It was a balmy but fairly clear night out in Hollywood, and looking once more at the lights flashing around them, it was hard yet again to believe that there was anything else out there but this world here and now.

But the gleam from the marquees seemed faded now too, obstructed by city smog—of the literal and metaphorical sense. Paul didn’t return to his trailer right away, but when he did, midnight had long since came and went, and the lights still burned on. Half of his somewhat-clouded brain thought about calling Jane, but she wouldn’t be up just yet—another part of him had contemplated finding a different girl just for one night, just to ease whatever was troubling him.

Instead, he returned home alone, and just barely managed to flick the dull set of lights on for inside the trailer—most of him just felt like flopping down with his clothes on and falling asleep right away. It turned out to be fortunate that he hadn’t, though, but instead taken the time to go about a more regular nightly routine…for although he was by himself here, it soon became quite evident he wasn’t the only one to set foot in his trailer that night.

At first, Paul had no idea what he was looking at—some kind of covered silver serving platter on his bed, as if from a fancy restaurant. He hadn’t ordered anything nor could he think of anyone else who would have done so for him, until curiosity got the best of him and he had to lift the cover up.

A distinct smell rose up to greet him, and he recognized the dish lying there on the platter. Of course, it had to be caviar, and beside it, a chilled bottle of top-tier champagne. He’d never be able to understand just how he did it, but the delivery also included a note in an unsteady scrawl that Paul well-recognized from countless times spent looking at it marking up copies of a script.

_Only the best of the best here. You’re a big star now, you can afford it. See you at the races._

_—John_

Paul stared from the note in his hands down to the tray with the food in front of him, and despite himself, couldn’t help but give a short, abrupt laugh. “Arsehole,” He muttered aloud then, crumpling the note up and going to light a cigarette—suddenly feeling anything but weary.

He’d keep the caviar around for a few days, he thought as he smoked—and let it grow warm and truly smelly, before he re-delivered it back to the sender. That champagne, however, he was going to keep. After weeks of enduring John Lennon and more still to come, it seemed the least he deserved.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again everyone! many thanks to all those commented/left a kudo/chatted with me on tumblr and all...the encouragement really keeps me going! i hope everyone who has waited enjoys this next part, and that it doesn't drag too much...
> 
> important: the deadline for the big bang has been extended to sunday, june 4. 
> 
> and ALSO, everyone should check out the absolutely incredible piece of artwork for this fic, done by [patatijas](https://patatijas.tumblr.com/post/160621834355/one-way-ticket-production-begins-with-box-office) on tumblr. it's a beautiful design of what a poster for the in-fic movie, "one-way ticket", might look like, and i love it more than words can say. a million thanks!! <33

They had left the diner behind them, closing the door and heading out into a light rain. This led to collars being turned up, hats put back on, but a certain degree of separation still maintained as they headed off down the street—and resumed their conversation.

“So you just expect me to believe that Prince’s goons are after you as well? Here I thought I was the special one.”

“I don’t ‘expect’ you to do anything And that Victor Prince is about as conniving as he is foul. He’s been on my tail for years now.”

“I don’t blame him, with a tail like that.”

“That’s enough of _that_ now, honestly—and you’d better pick up the pace. It’s dangerous to be out in the open like this for too long.”

“Then let’s duck for cover for a bit.”

The rain was coming down steadier now, driving sheets that forced Cal and Nick under the awning of a nearby hotel. Light spilled out from the windows and shone on the pavement as Paul looked up at the so-called sky just above them, water from the fake rain beading on his cheeks and clinging to his eyelashes. Beside him, John’s gaze lingered on him when it should have been looking towards the street before them.

A car rumbled past just then, headlights glaring, and Paul made a show of jumping back and under cover, knocking into John as he hissed in alarm. “That’s him—I know it is.”

“What makes you so sure?” John asked, nearly right in his ear, and Paul couldn’t help but shiver at that.

He turned his head, just a little, enough to barely get a glimpse of his scene partner out of the corner of his eye. “Nobody else drives a fancy car like that. And give a fella some space, you’re fogging up my mirrors here.”

Paul could feel it then, so much as he heard it—the tiniest of chortles from John, something of a laugh, at the line that had been added in. “I say we get out of here then, before he finds us. Better to be after him than the other way around.”

“Cut, cut!” Brian’s voice rang out, the clapperboard snapping and breaking the illusion. “That was brilliant, boys, but hang on—there’s something off with the lighting—”

 He began speaking with some of the technical crew, gesturing to the studio lights hung up above the set, and leaving Paul to lean against a nearby wall and wait for things to resume. After weeks on running lines and table reads, they had finally moved onto working on the set, giving the actors a chance to chew the scenery for a little. In the lull of time, John seized the moment to produce and light a cigarette from his pocket, puffing away while observing one of the younger, more attractive cameramen with careful eyes.

He hadn’t stopped being irritating sometimes, even after the little stunt with the caviar delivery. Paul had followed through with his own scheme, only he had arranged for it to be delivered as his lunch to him on the set. Craft services had been positively bewildered by the request, but bless them, they had carried it out anyway. It was easy enough to get people to do things here—and perhaps more importantly sometimes, easy enough to get them to _tell_ things. Paul had made use of that too.

Since then, John hadn’t tried a similar trick, but retained his otherwise obnoxious habits. It was a rare occasion indeed if he showed up on time for the day’s work, let alone early. He insisted on changing the lines of his own character around, yet seemed to take offense whenever Paul wanted to pause and do a scene over again, whenever he wanted to try and make something better.

Like now. “As we’re paused for a moment anyway…I think some of my delivery could be better,” Paul said briskly to Brian, who turned attentively to listen to his comments. “The line about Prince, in particular—shouldn’t  I—”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” John drawled from his position nearby, interjecting himself into the conversation without an invitation. “You’re overthinking, as usual, McCharmly, and—”

“And _furthermore,”_ Paul swiftly interrupted him, talking over him as he kept his back turned. “The blocking seems a little… _off_ too. Let’s put more of a distance between them.”

Brian exchanged a quick look with some of his assistants (including George, who seemed almost amused by Paul’s remark as he wrote something down on his clipboard) before saying slowly, “Well…we can certainly try it that way. But what we’re aiming to do here, Paul, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is…hint at something building here. A connection between two strangers.”

John gave a soft but audible snort at that, and Paul’s distaste must have flickered across his own face for a moment too, but Brian deftly nipped that in the bud with a small smile that was rather knowing. “And you’re both actors, aren’t you? It’s your line of work to sell it, no matter how you…er, may feel otherwise. I expect I needn’t you remind you of that.”

Paul blinked at that, almost feeling rather shame-faced all of a sudden…but only because Brian was correct. John was rude and damn near insufferable sometimes, but an outstanding actor, and no matter their snipping on set, Paul could hardly afford to give anything but his best in this project as well.

He nodded, feeling scolded, until John parroted Brian’s more plumy tones from just behind them. “I _expected_ we didn’t need to remind you of that, but ah well, we’ll give a rookie some slack…good thing you’ve got a pretty face, eh, love? Much more forgiving that way.”

“John.” Brian’s voice was sterner, something in his face seemed a little more flushed. “That’s quite enough of that.”

“Oh, c’mon Eppy, we all know why you signed him—look at him, for god’s sake. ‘Course, I never had that kind of dewiness myself—”

“Never had any what?” Paul demanded sharply, finally turning on him and that horribly sly look on his face, because if there was one thing he knew definitively about his co-star by now—it was that even when shooting his mouth off, John chose his words.

John folded his arms, crushing his cigarette out under his foot. “You heard me. Just because you can look the part doesn’t mean you can _act_ it.”

For a moment, Paul all but quivered on the spot, unsure if he wanted to punch John or perhaps storm off in the opposite direction—but instead, he chose the only thing that he _could_ do. He took a deep breath, pointedly turned away from John once more, and spoke directly and only to a still flustered-looking Brian.

“Let’s run the scene again.”

And they did—several more times over. It went smoothly enough, when John wanted to work and turn himself on, he really could do it spectacularly well…but there was an undercurrent now, a sort of subtle pointedness in their exchanges that hadn’t been quite so prominent before. Paul was still inwardly seething over John’s crass remarks, his mind wanting to dissect each thing he had heard but trying to commit to acting the scene instead. When the rain finally let up, the two made their way to Cal’s vehicle and drove off themselves, but didn’t make it very far before they realized they were being followed by one of Prince’s men, leading to a car chase scene—part of which had to be shot later.

A bell rang out just as John and Paul had dashed into the car for the third time, indicating something was awry elsewhere on the set—the scene was paused, and various crew members began swarming the premises to check for a loose wire or adjust the rolling screen behind them that indicated the passing city as they ‘drove’ the car. For a moment, they sat in silence, until John moved to open the door and climb out—but Paul cut him off before he could, the question bursting from his lips.

“What did you mean back there?”

“Eh?” John twisted in his seat, plainly taken aback, and Paul forced himself to move on even as his fingers tapped nervously on the seat.

“About Brian picking me to play the part. _Besides_ being an insult to me, I got that part of it very clearly.”

At this, John quirked an eyebrow, a familiar, disconcerting glint in his eyes. “Oh, _that…_ please, McCharmly, as if you hadn’t noticed? Take a look at all the pictures Brian’s been at the helm of—I’ll give you three guesses to figure out what they all have in common.”

When Paul looked blankly at him, John gave an exaggerated sigh. “Honestly…it’s young men, McCartney. Gorgeous young men. And even if none of them had to go to their knees to get the part, you know it’s _there.”_

Heat rose in Paul’s cheeks at that, something of a small strangled sound leaving him. “He…well, that hardly matters, does it—”

“Maybe it does or maybe it doesn’t,” John said. “Unless _you_ had to, or did those eyes do the trick alone—”

“Shut your mouth,” Paul had to snap at that, heat rising under his collar like a rash, bile rising in his throat. “It was nothing like that, _nothing,_ though you seem terribly interested—maybe those gossip magazines _do_ get it right from time to time.”

At this, it looked as if the smug expression on John’s face had been slapped clean off. He stared at Paul, notably paler, before asking flatly, “And just what exactly have _you_ been reading?”

An echo back to their first conversation, and as much as Paul wanted this current one to end, the spiteful side of him egged him on, trampling over all reason. “Nothing’s a complete secret in this town, John. People say that you’ve been spotted out and about with certain company too. None of the big publications would run pieces like that, of course not, but the more…underground ones.”

 _“Who?_ Have you been snooping, asking around—”

“What does it matter? All I know is that you’ve got a lot of nerve giving Brian any shit if those stories can be believed.”

John’s face seemed to spasm, it looked as if he was struggling very deeply internally and perhaps about to haul off and hit Paul instead, but he finally seemed to get ahold of himself—as a command finally hissed through his clenched teeth. “Get the fuck out. Get out _now.”_

Paul was only too happy to oblige him, keen to put some distance in between them, and so made for the car door handle, but not before John spoke again, for once, a measure of uncertainty in his voice. “Listen, you won’t—”

But Paul had already slammed the door behind him, and in a few short seconds, John had copied the gesture and was striding away from the set.

“We’re done for the day.”

“We’re…what?” A startled Brian looked up from the notes he was consulting with George. “No, no, we’ve got at least another hour or two left—”

“No, I think we’re done. We need a…we need a break here.” His furious, heated gaze flicked back over to Paul, as everyone else turned curiously to look at him too—but Paul gave a stiff, jerky nod himself.

“Couldn’t agree more.”

“John, wait—”

But Brian’s protest was cut off as John stormed off, walking away from the backlot where their set was constructed. George was sent after him (though he didn’t looked thrilled about it), and then Brian rounded on Paul instead, lips pursed together in disapproval.

“What the hell was all that about? Would you _please_ explain what’s going on between you two that keeps you from doing your jobs?”

“It’s…hard to explain,” Paul said testily, deliberately avoiding eye contact with him, and the director gave a sharp exhale.

“Well…fine then. But you had better go and get it sorted out, I don’t care what it takes—we’re on a tight schedule here. Do you understand that?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then you’d best act like it.”

A grim-faced George returned alone from an obviously unsuccessful mission shortly thereafter, reporting right to Brian. “I think he’s going back to his trailer—said he’s had enough for the day. If you ask me, I think we’ve had quite enough of _him.”_

Brian heaved a small groan, but finally shook his head. “Fine then. That’s…fine. But there’s no point in trying to go on without one of our leads.” He fixed Paul with a pointed look at that. “I suppose you can go too, Paul—but our call time is still tomorrow at nine o’clock. Whatever’s going on here…work it out between yourselves. We’ve got a picture to make.”

 “Yes, of course,” Paul said mulishly. “I understand that, I…” But his voice trailed off, the apology dying on his lips, because the look Brian was fixing him with made it quite clear that he wasn’t looking for any excuses or contrition, but visible improvement and results come the next day.

Feeling properly chastised, like a dog with its tail between its legs, Paul saw little choice but to heed his directions, and head back to his trailer for the day. Restless and agitated, pacing around and smoking simply weren’t enough after a while, and he made a choice to call Jane in the middle of it all—fortunately, she picked up, and gave him perhaps five minutes of uninterrupted ranting before she deftly cut him off.

“Paul! Have you even tried just talking to John about any of this?”

“As if I could get anything through his thick head, besides with a drill.”

“Well, have you _tried?”_

He nearly bristled at the tone in her voice, wondering if she could somehow sense his eye roll across the Atlantic Ocean. “I haven’t done anything _wrong,_ I don’t owe it to him to make amends—”

“Maybe not, but you _do_ have to do whatever it takes to get the train back on track down there. What’s the most important saying? ‘The show must go on?’”

Paul took a long drag of his cigarette, letting it go only when he thought he was capable of keeping the snap out of his voice. “Just whose side are you on here?”

“D’you want me to say yours? I’m not on anyone’s _side,_ Paul, this isn’t about that—but this is our _job._ Find a way to work around him and work with him for the next month, because he isn’t going to be the only person who ever gives you a scrap of difficulty.”

“You’re damn right about that.” It was a quick, off the cuff, rather rude remark—he wanted to take it back the moment it left him, but Jane’s short inhale of breath proved it was too late for that.

“Jane…listen—”

“I’d better get going,” She said stiffly. “I’ve got to go…rest up for the next leg of the tour today. We’re going into London tomorrow, so I expect I can ring you shortly. If you want to hear from me then, that is—”

He tried to protest again, but a definitive click indicated that the line had gone dead. Paul swore aloud, crushing his cigarette out, and staring moodily at the smoke as it faded away in the air.

It all seemed easy, during his last movie…long hours, sore feet from running through all the dance numbers time and time again, but most nights he had gone to sleep exhausted but pleased. He couldn’t remember ever sitting here and fuming as he was, a rotten taste in his mouth—it was all that bloody John’s fault, him and his wisecracks and need to heckle people, thinking his talent alone excused him, and—

Paul stopped himself mid-thought. Feelings like these were little else but a poisonous, noxious weed, they’d tangle around him and strangle him if he let them. True, John was a special kind of irritating, but Jane and Brian alike were right all along, of course…they had to get past this. This movie wasn’t something either of them could afford to screw up, not now.

It took a few drinks and several more cigarettes, but Paul finally scraped up the nerve to go and see if John was in his trailer. He might be inclined to let it go another day, but Brian had made sure their call time tomorrow was clear, and there would be more than a few producers on the set then as well—people who had to see that the picture was running as it should, not that the two leads couldn’t stop squabbling and storming off the set. He didn’t have the time to muck around about it.

It wasn’t particularly hard to find John’s trailer, he simply had to ask around before he was directed to it in another lot. From the outside, it looked much the same as his, perhaps a little larger, and it occurred to Paul that given the time of evening, it was far more likely that John was already out for the night and wouldn’t be back for hours. The notion almost persuaded him to turn around then and there, but he forced himself onward, to at least try…and yet when the door swung open after he knocked on it, he nearly fell over in surprise.

“Well, well…look who showed up,” John drawled, leaning against the frame of the door. He was dressed far more casually, his hair something of a mess and a faint smell of alcohol on him—Paul didn’t have to stretch his imagination to guess at what he’d been up to since the last time they saw each other. If he was surprised to see him at all, he didn’t show it, jerking his chin in an almost aggressive manner. “You’re not selling anything, are you? Whatever it is, I’ve got it already, unless it’s the King James Bible.”

He might have ordinarily smiled at that—but had to let it go for now. “I, er…I was just wondering—could I come in?”

“No,” John said shortly, and made to turn around—only Paul spoke up first.

“I’m sorry. For what I…for what I said earlier. I was out of line with that.”

“Too right, you were.”

“But you know… _you’ve_ been out of line an awful lot yourself, John.”

He turned around at that, surveying him intently. “Do you want me to apologize for that?”

“Maybe. I sure as hell want you to _stop.”_

John studied him for a moment longer, then flicked his head towards inside the trailer. “Oh, fine…come on in, then. Mind your feet.”

It seemed like a strange instruction at first, but stepping inside soon revealed why it made sense after all—the place was only a few paces away from a total pigsty. Clothes lay scattered on nearly every available surface, here and there some old cups and plates, ash trays, and most of all, _books._ It looked like John had a miniature library in here, and Paul couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows as he pointed to a stack of them commandeering a good chunk of space on the sofa.

“Er…I didn’t know you were such a reader.”

“Like I said earlier, McCartney…maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Care for something to drink, _monsieur?”_

“Oh, ta. I mean…sure.”

John fixed them both a strong-smelling drink in glass tumblers, then took a seat on the opposite side from Paul—a clear distance in between them. For a few moments, the two just sipped their drinks in silence, Paul glancing awkwardly around the place and looking for a way to jump back into the conversation—until they both spoke up at once.

“I didn’t—”

“Do you—”

They came up short then as Paul rubbed the back of his neck, briefly flustered, and John’s small smile flickered back onto his face at that. “You first.”

Of course. Paul took a deep breath, running his finger along the rim of his glass. “Look, John…I don’t care if you don’t like me, or my last movie, or the way I act sometimes—there’s plenty of shit I could say about _you.”_

“Oh, say it isn’t so!” John made a show of covering his heart in mock offense, and Paul pressed on.

“But like it or not…we’re working together on this. It’s a great picture, Brian knows what he’s doing, and he chose us to be in it. I’m…well, I _am_ sorry for what I said earlier. It’s really none of my damn business. But what _is_ is seeing that we get this movie done.”

John let out a low whistle at that, taking a sip of his drink. “Well…no wonder you got into stage acting. Pretty speech, there. Did you really mean all that?”

“I…I did, yeah. I don’t want to keep all this petty shit up, John, it just doesn’t thrill me the way it apparently does you.”

John seemed almost amused, giving a soft scoff. “Sincerity gets you nowhere in this town, McCartney. And certainly not in the industry. Lying your dear head off is like to do you better.”

“I get paid to do that on-screen, I don’t care about doing it anywhere else,” Paul said shortly, and John looked at him for one second longer—during which he took his advantage. “Is that why you don’t live here, then? In Hollywood, I mean, if you don’t like it. Only you’re living in a trailer here instead of a place of your own in town…”

John cocked his head to the side, seemingly surprised for a moment. “…I’m between houses for the moment, as you might well know if you really do read the gossip rags that you claim to."

Last year had ushered in a truly scandalous divorce between John and his then-wife, which Paul could still vaguely remember reading about in the papers. He had been a tad distracted making his first movie at the time, but it had been hard to ignore something discussed almost everywhere. According to the reports, Cynthia had taken one of the houses in the settlement, but John still owned their second one in New York. “Well…that one was everywhere…”

“Yeah, it was,” John said bitterly, his free hand drumming its fingers on the table near him. “But if you must know, New York is just…more for me, that’s all. Hollywood is rampant with pretenders and players and has-beens, and after a while, you just get sick to death of it all.”

It was a moment of candid honesty—for all of John’s talk about lying being better. But the way he wouldn’t meet his gaze and the slight furrow in his brows all seemed to indicate that he was quite sincere…and Paul found he didn’t have the heart to nettle him for it, to make some cutting remark about it (as, needless to say, John well might have had their positions been reversed).

“I…can understand that. I liked New York, I was there at the Feldman Theater for a bit a few years back—but it’s been a long time.”

“…maybe you’ll get to go back someday.”

“Maybe so.”

There was another beat of silence, but not as uncomfortable as the one before—and it was John who broke it this time. “Look. Believe it or not, I don’t want this picture to go down in flames either. Brian’s an old friend. It’s not a bad film. I may have some…er, _reservations_ about you, but…oh Christ, don’t make me say it—”

“Hold on.” Paul held a hand up while setting his drink down. “I want to hear this good and proper. We’ve got executive producers coming tomorrow—”

John nearly spilled his drink down his shirt at that. “We’ve got _what?_ ”

“Do you ever pay attention?”

“Oh, don’t start this again—”

“Listen.” Paul interrupted him swiftly. “We’ve got producers coming tomorrow, and publicity shots at the end of the week—the press is going to be here. I think we ought to do something quite radical…and pretend to get along. Just for a bit, you know.”

John swirled his drink around, seemingly thinking it over. “Hm…there’s a wild thought. D’you think we can pull it off?”

“We’re actors, aren’t we? I know what awards you’ve been up for, John, surely you put some of that talent to good use.”

John paused, then gave a small smirk. “We did sort of work well together, didn’t we? I mean, during the scenes, when everything’s going smoothly. It works, doesn’t it?”

 _We work._ “…yes,” Paul admitted, thinking back to many examples of this. “It _does_ work. I think we should just…try and make it work a little _more._ Just until filming wraps.”

“And then we can go back to slandering each other’s names?”

Paul snorted at that, lifting his drink again. “Yes. Then I won’t care what you go spouting to the press.”

“And I won’t care what you go reading, even if it’s the kind of talk that can ruin someone’s career.” John’s tone was light enough, but delicately barbed—he knew just where Paul had been nosing around, and he had to give a nod at that. Annoying John may be, but he didn’t have any wish to see him go up in flames for anything as petty as all that.

“So, we…we’ve got an understanding, then?”

“Oh, of course. Mind you, I still don’t _like_ you, but I’m prepared to deal with it. We can’t keep things _too_ quiet on set now, can we?”

And Paul had to laugh despite everything. “I suppose we can’t. Cheers.”

“Cheers.” They clinked glasses, and as their eyes met over them, for once no mockery or malice or jaded glaze in John’s eyes—Paul felt something loosen in his chest at the sight of him, almost warm, for the first time.

They could reach an uneasy sort of peace agreement. What more could happen now?

***

 The next day, they ran scenes once more, this time in front of an intent, alert audience—an audience that held the purse strings too. Brian nearly collapsed when John was on time for once, and Paul (of course, already here early) gave a brief smile…one that his co-star caught, and acknowledged with the quickest of winks and rubbing the side of his nose.

Something electric seemed to happen then, once they had made it through makeup and wardrobe, once the cameras were rolling and pointed only on them. Instead of trying to block the scene with distance between them, Paul let his body angle itself where it wanted to—and with John always pressing closer, the rising action of the scene building in between them, he made little effort to get away. Nick was still on guard, however, still reserved, and so he kept his arms folded tight across his chest as they talked under the awning in the rain.

The car chase scene went well too—they had the screen behind them, painted with images of vehicles and road flying past, and headlights drawing ever closer. It really did require John to drive for a small part of it, and Paul could safely conclude by the end of _that_ experience that he really was quite horrible at it…but he kept that to himself for now.

The next scene would lead them back to Cal’s apartment, where they would find his place utterly trashed and his neighbor, Holly, in complete hysterics over the break-in. They had already filmed this one earlier with the actress Grace Porter, a petite brunette who had wailed and cried spectacularly. Sitting just behind the producers in their chairs, Paul and John got to watch the footage of the scene themselves, an out of body experience that was still a bit odd to him.

There was John, clutching Grace by the shoulders and looking intently into her eyes. “Calm down, Holly, now just calm down—take it slow. What the hell happened here tonight?”

Her panic-filled gaze swept over to Nick instead. “He isn’t…oh, he’s with you, Cal?”

“Yes,” Cal confirmed grimly, his eyes glancing back towards Nick for a moment. “He’s a…friend, of sorts.”

Watching himself on the screen, Paul could see how his lips moved soundlessly, barely noticeable but _still,_ over lines that weren’t his own sometimes—he wanted to reach through and kick himself somehow. Next to him, John was reciting all of his own lines under his breath in increasingly ridiculous tones, and nudged Paul with his foot at that one.

“A friend, of sorts. Interesting.”

On the screen, Paul watched as he and John moved into the apartment then, surveying the mess there and eventually stumbling upon the warning note left for him by Prince—bring a bag of money to the 11:15 PM train bound for Louisville, or risk them hunting them down. “I thought I’d left all this behind me,” Cal was saying heavily on-screen, and Nick made a show of picking up a shard of the broken mirror in the bedroom, turning it over in his hands.

“You can’t run from everything. Sometimes the past just doesn’t stay in the past.”

Cal looked up to meet his gaze, and there was a flicker of something there—a kind of understanding, perhaps, a mutual sort of comprehension. Paul could vividly remember how troublesome John had been about this scene while they were filming it, but watching him now on the screen…one would never know it. He was brooding, quiet, contemplative—the perfect sort of strong but silent type for this sort of film.

And he also watched himself skirt around that presence, Nick always delicate, always mindful of the bigger game he was playing. He watched himself move closer and then back again, drawn in yet also determined to remain distant, both of their gazes lingering on each other for far too long in several spots—and it felt like some of the breath had caught in his throat.

 It had been there, all along? He and John were less than friendly in real life, but still somehow interested in each other…and it came to life on the screen, in their complex characters and the twisted relationship developing between them. One could see it, even he could now, like he was watching someone else. And he’d seen John in pictures before but this was somehow…different. It was plain to see how often his eyes came to rest on him, arresting and all-consuming.

The producers seemed pleased by the end of it, chattering away to each other and to Brian. Even George Martin, his ever-present cigar in hand, had cause to smile and nod along as they talked things over. “Excellent work, Brian…it really seems to be coming together, eh? I’ll admit I had…reservations at first, especially about your two leads working together, but perhaps I was wrong.”

“There’s a confession for the history books,” Brian joked, though he couldn’t keep the beam off of his face—he looked rather thrilled. All the nuts and bolts and technical conversation that followed interested Paul only a little, he’d never had much of a head for finance—neither did John, it transpired, who soon lost concern once people were done talking directly to him.

He moved a bit away from the gathered crowd in the screening room, fishing a lighter out of his trouser pocket and a pack of cigarettes soon after, and Paul was oddly inspired to dart over to him. “D’you mind if I…?”

“Oh, no…help yourself.” John held the pack out and Paul took one for himself—Lucky Strikes, not his own brand, but he wasn’t complaining. He was extending a hand for the lighter soon afterwards, but John beat him to it there as well, lifting the tiny flame up to light the end of the cigarette himself. Over the bright glare, their eyes met briefly, and then darted away, Paul suddenly needing to take a deep lungful of tobacco.

“Well, all the bigwigs seem to like it, at any rate,” John remarked, nodding towards the pack of producers. “That’s always what counts, isn’t it?”

“Counts for something,” Paul agreed, letting the cigarette dangle loosely from his fingers.

“…what do _you_ think?”

“About the footage?”

“No, about Martin’s new suit.”

“Oh, I think it fits him. That’s a good color, and the tie is different, isn’t it?”

John’s lips curled up in a smile around the cigarette. “I meant the damn picture. Don’t be getting smart with me.”

“Bit rich, coming from you. But it’s…it’s really…” Paul’s voice trailed off for a moment, words suddenly lost to him—how could he articulate just how stunning it had been to sit back and watch all of their work so far, right from their first day on set? Besides his last film, no other footage of him acting existed, and it was still a bit of an odd thing to get used to. Who was that person up there, peeking out coyly from under long, dark lashes, face so often a sly but unreadable mask?

“You think it’s shit, don’t you?” John sounded curiously disappointed, deliberately avoiding his eyes.

“No, I don’t! ‘Course not…it’s good, John. We’re good. But I think we could be even better.”

“Oh, this sounds familiar,” John mock-groaned, though he seemed a bit cheered by Paul’s words. “Always reaching for the stars, our McCartney is.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Well, it’s a _bit_ annoying when we’ve got to do a scene about fifty times over because you don’t think you’ve got it right yet—”

Paul opened his mouth to retort, but they were interrupted by Brian ushering them over to join the circle of producers. The two exchanged glances, and Paul instead lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Remember…act like we get along.”

It was like they were in on some plot, some kind of secret—even if the secret was only the mutual agreement that they ought to at least pretend to be capable of working together. Brian had created an outline of the production schedule, with on-location filming for the thrilling train ride sequence beginning next week. And what was more—

“If things keep on course, we’ll be wrapped in about two months," Brian said confidently. “And then comes all the promotional material, naturally, but we’re still on track for the July release date. A summer blockbuster, I can see it now!”

***

 Things on set were a little different then—at least, enough for even others to notice something of a change. When Paul and John were witnessed carrying on a perfectly civil conversation in between wardrobe changes, George’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline.

“Something the matter?” John asked of him, giving him a leer—and George just shrugged.

“Nothing. Seems to be the opposite, if you ask me.”

Even Ringo had noticed a slight shift, when the other two were capable of even standing still and near each other for a long while as they posed for one of their publicity photoshoots. The pictures would run in _Photoplay,_ in _Life,_ in any other publication that wanted a bite of them—so Ringo had to be on the set as well. In the past few weeks, he had already grown the pencil-thin mustache that his character required, though his naturally doleful eyes still made him look sadder rather than sinister.

“I’m glad it seems like John got bored of biting your head off all the time,” He muttered in a low voice to Paul in between photographers, the three of them lounging around the set in some of their costumes for the movie.

“That makes two of us. I think we can at least make it through the rest of the shooting, for god’s sake.”

“I hope so,” Ringo chuckled a little. “God, what did you do to him, though?”

It was a joke, meant as just a playful jest—but something in it pricked Paul like a pen then. What _had_ caused this shift was their late-night conversation in John’s trailer, after…well, after John thought Paul had possibly damaging information and stories on him. Perhaps he was only playing along because he felt concerned, blackmailed more than anything else, and the thought didn’t sit quite right with him.

“So, Mr. McCartney,” A reporter asked him soon afterwards, scribbling away in his notebook. “This is only your second motion picture, and your first with Mr. Lennon—what’s been the best part of working with him so far?”

Paul couldn’t help but glance over at John nearby, chatting to a reporter as well—but he looked over at the feel of eyes on him, and quirked a small half-smile. Something in Paul’s stomach seemed to inexplicably flip a little at that, and he leaned back in his seat.

“Oh, John’s been great…it’s certainly something else, to work with such a renowned actor. Quite a career, he’s had.”

“Absolutely. Hard to believe those humble vaudeville beginnings sometimes, isn’t it?”

“That’s right!” Paul had to laugh a little at that. “God, sometimes you forget things like that when you’re focusing on the here and now—the work you’re doing at the present. Johnny’ll have to show us an old song and dance number from his early days sometimes, won’t he?”

“He’d be quite the match with you then,” The reporter pointed out. “I imagine it’s been very different, going from a movie like _From Me To You_ to this one instead.”

“It’s had its challenges. But I’ve always liked a good one of those, mind you. I can’t wait to see where the rest of this project will take me.”

Unsurprisingly, John made a show of catching him up to him once the photos were completed for the day. “Having a field day with the press? I hope you’re not slandering my good name _too_ harshly out there.”

“I’ll leave you to do the slandering yourself,” Paul said wryly, pushing open one of the studio doors that led to an alleyway outside. It was a bright, clear day, the kind to make one appreciate being outdoors after so long cooped up inside, and he gave his jacket a pocket to make sure he had his wallet with him. “Say, d’you…maybe want to go get something to eat? I’m starving.”

John studied him for a moment as if suspecting a trap, but finally nodded. “All right. I’ll even let you pick where we go, provided it isn’t somewhere I don’t want.”

“Always so conditional!”

They settled for a nearby Italian place, stopping only briefly to place their orders and take most of it on the road with them. Along the stroll, there was ample time to look at all the other posters and marquees around the place once more, and Paul grinned at the sight of one for musical film with a waltzing couple advertised on it.

“You know…it _did_ come up today about how your film origins are less than distinguished, shall we say. I admit I’ve never seen the early ones, but I know _Show Boat_ certainly must have been—”

“A mess,” John finished for him, rolling his eyes. “I was desperate for work, I could obviously play the clown—god, I still think some of those songs haunt my nightmares.”

“You’ll have to demonstrate how those go sometimes…complete with a dance number,” Paul said wryly, and John did a sort of skip on the spot.

“I’ll need a reminder—who better than our box office baby here? What was that one song in your picture? ‘Dream Of Me?” His voice, when he sang a few bars, was on the flatter sound, but certainly nothing horrible at all. “‘When the moon winks through your window, oh darling, dream a pretty dream of me…’”

Paul might have ordinarily brought his hands together for a sarcastic round of applause—in any case, he wasn’t prickling at the mockery anymore—but something else popped in his memory listening to John sing one of the songs from the movie. It clicked in his mind, hearkening back to weeks ago when they had first met, and suddenly—

“Wait a minute here! Do mine ears deceive me? John…I thought you’d never been to see that movie. It was _kiddies’_ day at the theater, remember?”

His voice reeked of a sly triumph, and he saw it all displayed on John’s angular face then—the flicker of shock, the few moments where he tried to splutter out an excuse…and then he heaved a sigh, squinting into the sky. “Oh…all right. I suppose the cat’s been shaken clean out of the bag. _Yes,_ I saw your cute little picture. Kids and all.”

“…how many times?”

“What?”

“You’ve got the song memorized. How many times did you go to see it?”

John rubbed at his nose in that surprisingly endearing manner that he did sometimes. “I…well. I think around three, at last count. Maybe less. In fact, definitely less.”

 _“Three_ times?” Paul couldn’t stop the wide grin on his face, something in him lifting like a balloon. “Why, John…you’re a fan!”

“I’m not—I—” John visibly spluttered while Paul watched in amusement, and then his co-star let out a snort. “It was good to see it with a girl, you know. Only problem is that they were awfully busy swooning over _you_ on the screen instead.”

“Is that really a problem?”

“I wish they could see you now,” John chortled suddenly, as both of them paused outside a department store window. “That food’s done a number on you, son—you’ve got sauce on your face.”

“Oh—”

Paul lifted a hand to try and scout it out, but John beat him to it. With fingers that were rough yet surprisingly gentle, he lifted his thumb to wipe the corner of Paul’s mouth, removing the offending smear. What was more, he let it stay there a moment too long—trapped under the sudden gesture and that intense, focused look in John’s eyes, it felt like Paul’s quickening pulse had taken up residence more so in his throat for a few heartbeats. His lips unconsciously parted a little, until a loud blaring horn from a nearby taxi broke them out of it.

“Er…thank you,” Paul said, feeling rather flustered as John wiped his fingers off.

“Don’t mention it. Come on, then…I don’t feel like going back to my trailer, do you?”

“Going back to _yours?”_

“Only if you wanted, McCartney,” John teased, but there was something distinctly playful in his voice—a different kind of thrill seemed to go up Paul’s spine.

“I, uh…no, it’s a nice day. Let’s see how long we can enjoy it out here before people try to mob one or both of us.”

It transpired that that particular idea wasn’t going to last very long—but before too many passerby stopped to stare, or pull a random object out for them to autograph, their stroll around Hollywood wasn’t at all unpleasant. John pointed out one of his favorite bookshops, a thoroughly secondhand-looking little place on the corner. “One of the few places in this damn town I’m glad they know me by face. My aunt reckons I’m going to lose all my money buying libraries.”

“Is she right?”

“Well…maybe.”

It was a different side of John, one Paul had only gotten glimpses of before, when he talked about things that he loved. His voice wasn’t full of mockery or contempt, but something softer, and he rather had the impression that this was a John that no magazine reporter would ever get a passing glance at. Something in him felt oddly touched, surprisingly grateful, that he could be trusted with such a thing himself.

When they were eventually spotted by a couple of enthusiastic fans, they took the time to be polite before John glanced up towards the darkening sky. “God, where did the time go? I’ve got a long night ahead of me, but we can start the drinks early…I think I ought to show you one more thing, McCartney. But we’re going to need a driver.”

He first stopped to buy a bottle of wine, then flagged down a taxi driver who was able and willing to take them out of the city limits. Watching the lights flash by for a while, a so-far obliging Paul twisted in his seat to peer suspiciously at John.

“You’re not about to bury me out in the countryside somewhere, are you?”

“Hardly. If I wanted you gone, you’d be out by now.”

“Comforting to know.”

The taxi eventually let them out near the expressway, the rumble of cars faintly heard nearby, and John thanked him merrily before he began the trek up a slope nearby, dotted with scrubby bushes. He was drinking again, swigging from the bottle and singing some more, and Paul had to sigh as he watched him go.

“Just where the hell are we going again?”

“Trust me!”

Not exactly reassuring—but so help him, Paul did, following John up parched California landscape. The sun was setting by then, the sky just turning an inky purple-blue, and out here away from the city smog and lights, it was easier to see the stars coming out and dotting above them like jewels. Paul caught up to John near the edge of a ledge, and he indicated for him to come closer.

“Take a look at that view, son—not to be a sentimentalist, but holy cats.”

Paul moved closer, looking out over the view John could see…and then he had to pause, some of the wind briefly knocked out of him. From this vantage point, they could easily see what looked like the entire town of Los Angeles, spread out before them like a blanket. Multi-colored lights shimmered from the buildings, almost like a reflection of the stars above them with a little more variety. The mountain chain on the other side of the valley loomed just beyond the town, what looked like almost a protective barrier around this sparkling, magical city.

“Oh my god,” Paul couldn’t help but murmur. “Makes you wish you had a camera, doesn’t it?”

John took a swig from the bottle, then offered it to his companion. “Maybe so. Makes me wish a lot of things."

“Like what?”

“Things I wish I could do differently, I suppose. And…for things that I can’t have.”

Paul turned a little, finishing his sip of the rather tart wine. “The great John Lennon surely doesn’t have anything out of his reach.”

John’s smile was almost a little sad at that. “Maybe he does.”

The moon was appearing in the sky, gleaming full and bright above them, and something about it inspired Paul—who felt freer somehow, exhilarated.  “‘When the moon winks through your window, oh darling, dream a pretty dream of me…when you close your eyes and sleep, oh darling, I hope it’s only me you see…”

He was singing, loose-lipped and light-headed, and after a beat, John soon joined in himself—in a highly exaggerated whimsical voice, of course. “How did that waltz in the picture go again?” He laughed, and Paul sat both the wine bottle and his jacket aside in the patchy grass.

“You said I should show you—come on, then.”

Maybe the drink was already going to his head, but John showed little hesitation in coming forward, in closing the gap between them. “Let me lead,” Paul instructed, smoothly taking his hand, the other moving to tuck in around his waist.

“I may swoon,” John pretended to sigh, going briefly limp, and Paul hauled him back up with a laugh.

“Steady there, steady—you’re worse than Miss Adelaide.”

“Pretty girl. She looked like a ninny though.”

“Between you and me…she was a little.”

And they waltzed—not very well, but it counted for something. Paul’s singing was good but John’s was deliberately out of key, adding to their ridiculous façade, until both of them found the whole thing so hilarious they had to pause to laugh again. It felt like his very bones had gotten looser, almost liquid, and it occurred to him in a part of his dizzy mind that perhaps it really hadn’t been wine in that bottle.

Their comic dancing came to a halt, Paul managing to speak up. “I think…we had better stop.”

“We _did_ stop,” John pointed out, and so they had—but their hands didn’t move away from each other’s body. In fact, John’s slid from where his free hand was cupping Paul’s shoulder, the fingers moved to slide against his neck and cheek instead—and Paul suddenly shivered, his breath hitching, and some part of him keenly aware of how John’s eyes looked in the glow of the moon.

“Well, I think we had better…we had better…” But he couldn’t think of what to say, his thumb moved to hook into the waistband of John’s trousers, just barely making contact with smooth skin under there, and their loosely intertwined fingers tangled together even tighter.

“Please,” John said, and his voice was unusually soft and hoarse, his pupils blown wide in the dark, lips quivering. Paul could almost make out every freckle on him from here. “Let’s not go back…Paul, listen—”

It was perhaps the first time he had called him by his first name, and it looked like it nearly relieved him to do so. “I know I was fucking…just fucking awful to you when we started work here. I just didn’t…I didn’t know what to say. What to do. You were there all smiles and those big goddamn eyes, just like in the picture, but… _real._ Real, and I couldn’t…handle it. I had to test you, had to see.”

“And that you certainly did,” Paul pointed out, but John wasn’t done yet, loosely shaking his head.

“And then…damn it all, I don’t know how you found out about me, but you did. More fool me, I know how nothing stays a secret here. And even _more_ of a fool, I thought…I actually hoped…” But his voice trailed off, he sounded desperate for a moment, and he made a motion like he was going to pull away—but Paul firmly, but not forcefully, kept him in his grip. His palms seemed oddly sweaty but his mouth curiously dry, he had to wet his lips as he flicked his gaze from John’s up to his eyes.

“…hoped what?” But John had felt it too, hadn’t he? Every time they were running a good scene together, and then earlier watching the playback of it all. He could surely see it for himself, what Paul was seeing too.

They shone together. They gleamed. It was almost like, somehow, they had been meant to work together. It was the last somewhat clear thought Paul managed to have, before John made a small sound.

“…I hoped this.” And he moved closer, so close their noses were brushing and yet there was still time for Paul to break away, for him to end it, and a rational part of him told him that he ought to—but the rest of him didn’t. The boy who had packed up everything he owned to run off and join a theater company once, who had launched himself into this business based on passion and a streak of recklessness, egged him on here, and all the very rest of him simply gave into it.

Their lips hardly brushed at first, once, and then again—and when it became clear to John that Paul wasn’t yelling, wasn’t hitting him or pulling away, he moved on. With a ragged sighing sound, he freed his one hand so it could rest on Paul’s jaw, taking him into something deeper, their lips meeting again and mouths falling open, any sound they made slipping and spilling in between them. John tasted like alcohol and faintly, of tobacco, the light smell of a spicy cologne and sweat from their trek up here still clung to him, and combined with what he had had to drink himself, it was making Paul’s head spin.

There was so much that he wanted now—but a base part of him just urged him on for _more._ He had to have it, he had to, like something had erupted inside him, all his carefully-constructed and put-together self falling by the wayside…until they had to part for the simple necessity of air, their eyes locking again. Breathing raggedly, the corner of John’s mouth lifted in a smile Paul wanted badly to trace with his finger, with his lips, all of it—but the gust of chillier air also seemed to serve like a smack to the face, and suddenly, the warm feeling over him was frozen by his blood running cold.

“…what is it?” John asked nervously, almost hesitantly, fingers stroking Paul’s face—and then and only then did he recoil. He saw it then, the flash of shock and hurt across John’s face like a lightning bolt, and something in his heart twisted…but he had to do this, he couldn’t lose his head now like this.

“…we can’t be doing this. John, we _can’t_ be doing this. We’re out in the bloody open!”

“With no one else around, absolutely no one. Christ, I’m no amateur when it comes to this—”

“But we can’t do…we can’t do this here. Not here, not now. John, please, we’ve got a movie to be doing, we can’t be out here like this!”

“Oh please,” John said sarcastically, moving away from Paul—and like a hurt, wounded animal, he was going to lash out now. “Like you’ve never messed around with a co-star before, honestly!”

“The last time I did that was with the girl I’m seeing now. But god, that was Jane, and this is…you _know_ this is different, John. You said it yourself.”

The kind of thing that could end a career. They both knew it then, all the danger and risk and yet the mutual attraction billowing in between them, in John’s defiant, injured gaze—and then he let out an almighty scoff. “Fine. Fine, then. I must’ve had you wrong all along then.”

“It…John, it’s not like—” But the glib tongue so good at reading lines and feeding sound bites to the press was suddenly tangled, twisted with his heart over the confusing muddled feelings he was experiencing now. He thrust his hands through his hair, still wishing to protest somehow, but John was determinedly marching his way off down the slope they had came up.

“John!” He couldn’t help but cry after him. “I don’t want this to…I mean…you’ll still show up for call tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” John snapped back over his shoulder. “You’ve only said a hundred times how we’ve got a picture to do. But for right now…I guess you can find your _own_ way back home. Careful you don’t trip over your own horseshit on the way down.”

John must have known of another way back down to the road, for by the time Paul raced to catch up to him, he was long gone. Paul was left to stand in the dark, the lights of town shining away in the distance still--but seeming rather cold now. His head hurt, some part of his heart seemed to ache, and his stomach roiled a little from whatever the hell had been in the bottle...but he had to get back. Paul set off on foot at first, guilt-ridden and miserable and confused...and thinking of that kiss, and the way John's eyes lingered on him so often on-screen and in person. 

If he had ruined their working relationship, to say nothing of whatever personal one was there, he'd never forgive himself. He was already on the road there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! look out for the next part, and you can also find me on tumblr at [glimmerkeith](http://glimmerkeith.tumblr.com).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> greetings once more...and again, thank you for all reviews/kudos/reads, whatever...feedback is the best possible way to know how i'm doing. it really means a lot to me! and thank you as well for being patient in waiting for updates, my life is often hectic and i do the best i can!
> 
> some notes: the movie mentioned here, "it happened one night," is a real 1934 picture starring clark gable and claudette colbert. it became the first movie to win all five major academy awards (best picture, best actor, best actress, best director and best screenplay) and it really is a delightful pre-code screwball comedy. it can be viewed in its entirety online, and i do recommend it (some period typical warnings apply). also of historical note, popcorn did exist as a movie snack starting in the 1930s. it directly came about because it was cheap and easy to make during the depression. 
> 
> and another thing: the observant mind may notice (or will now, i hope!) that i have officially changed the rating for this fic for...reasons. i would rather label it something to be on the safe side (despite the NSFW content...hmm...) despite my (usually) "less is more" when it comes to that sort of thing.
> 
> in any case...enjoy!

Paul hardly slept a wink that night. He could only lay there in the dark, his head still feeling woozy, stomach barely able to stop churning for a while. Every time he closed his eyes, he seemed to see a flash of John’s hurt, crushed expression, so different from his usual snide mask, that rare moment of honesty that he couldn’t hide before the curtain came crashing down again. And the feeling of his lips on his before then…Paul’s mouth felt bruised somehow, almost branded, as his fingers couldn’t help but fist, white-knuckled, in the sheets.

It had to be put aside. They had to forget about it, it was the only way. The only way for them to go on with the movies, with their lives…they could chalk it up as both of them having something too strong to drink, and then move on with things.

Or so Paul thought. He was almost late for his call time the next morning after sleeping fitfully, though truth be told, having a bit of a lie-in felt far more natural for him. Arriving early for everything was a trained practice, something he had to work at still despite years of doing it, but today he caught it awfully close to his call time. Right away, the various set assistants seemed to detect there was something a little off about him, his usually cheery “good morning” expressions now flattened and dull, if spoken at all.

“Something wrong with you, then?” George appeared shortly after Paul had emerged from the makeup trailer, a bit of a frown on his face, and Paul did his best to foist something of a smile on his face.

“Oh yes, I’m perfectly all right…just didn’t sleep very well, is all.”

One mercy was that he wouldn’t have to see John right away, he’d actually be working on a scene with some of the actors playing the secondary roles of Prince’s goons—Nick had an altercation with them on the way to the train station, before he and Cal left town with the money they’d stolen to pay their bad guy off. It was easy, somehow more relaxed despite the on-screen tension as Nick confronted them, assured them that the money was on the way.

As the hours wore by and work went on, it became easier for Paul to relax and get back into the swing of things. In the middle of a scene, working with new people and getting feedback from Brian, there was simply very little time or energy for him to devote towards thinking about John, or what had happened last night. It might have gone on that way all day, but of course, it could never be that easy.

Shortly after the whole crew had split up for a lunch break, there was a commotion from over in the wardrobe department. There came a scuffle, and then the familiar waspish cry from George. “Mr. Lennon, you’re absolutely drunk—”

“I’m _not_ drunk,” slurred a voice to make Paul’s heart sink. “A bit hungover, maybe so, but not enough that I can’t go on today. The show has to keep going, doesn’t it?”

John all but staggered onto the set, dressed in his costume and with his hair combed, but he still looked rather worse for the wear—when his eyes clapped onto Paul, however, something distinct seemed to gleam in his eyes, a new kind of vigor causing him to straighten up.

“Aha, there’s my charming co-star…shall we get to it then, McCartney? Or would you prefer to let it dangle in agony for a while, that _does_ seem more your style?”

Of course, John could never simply let what had happened just fall by the wayside—he’d find his own subtle, sneaky ways to keep jabbing Paul with it, back to his old tricks. Despite his own irritation at himself for feeling it, Paul couldn’t help but experience a dull ache of disappointment, a sinking feeling low in his stomach…their relationship had made such careful but important progress, had he really dashed it all to pieces with one mistake last night?

In any case, as before, he couldn’t let himself be rattled by John—or couldn’t have anyone see how much he was. “If you’re feeling up to it, John. You certainly don’t look like it now.”

“Me? Oh, no, no, I’ve never been better. Let’s get on with it.”

Of course, he still got a scolding from Brian about showing up to work with a hangover, but it all seemed to be rather in one ear and out the other with John, who nodded along to the chiding while his eyes seemed to flicker everywhere—coming to land, now and again, on Paul as they always did. For his part, Paul spent the time smoking a cigarette in high agitation, mentally preparing himself for the scene ahead, one in which Cal confronted Nick about his odd behavior and asked him if he was sure he could trust him.

It was a scene meant to be fraught with suspense, with a palpable tension…and that much at least, Paul thought heavily, they could be sure to achieve. Like what they had witnessed so far, their personal feelings would be ripe to bleed into the fabric of their acting, for better or for worse.

Paul was already bracing himself when the crew began to assemble, moving the cameras into place and adjusting the lighting for the scene, outside a seedy rest stop in the dead of night. John’s somewhat more haggard, rumpled appearance actually befit a man who had spent some time on the road, and just stolen a good deal of money to pay off men after his life. If anyone could pull it off, it was certainly John, who placed the hat for his wardrobe over his head, then glanced over at Paul almost suspiciously.

The set was still busy, they had a few moments while the general noise around them could keep them from being heard, and Paul took a deep breath before he spoke. “John—I don’t want…what happened to keep us from doing our jobs here. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Oh, don’t worry…I understand plenty, just plenty. All of our little secrets are safe with each other, aren’t they?”

John slunk away then, moving to where he’d enter the scene from, as an assistant hurried over to get a mic on him and make sure everything was in working order. Paul couldn’t shake off his feeling of unease, of agitation, like being on pins and needles with little idea of how to escape them. His own position required him to be leaning against one of the brick walls outside the rest stop, a lantern flickering on and off above his head, throwing half of his face in and out of shadows.

He only had time to clench and unclench his hands once before Brian called out, “Action!”, and they were off.

“Say, where’d you get off to?” Cal demanded, striding into the frame with his hands stuffed in his pockets—Nick hesitated, but was soon waved off as his companion peered shiftily around him. “Oh, it doesn’t really matter…I can’t go on for much longer like this, though. Every passing set of headlights frightens me.”

“You, frightened?” Nick asked coyly, arching an eyebrow, and Cal glared back at him.

“Yes, I am. And you would be too, if you had any sense.”

“There’s plenty I’m afraid of, but a man who has to hide in the shadows and send his toadies to do the dirty work for him isn’t quite part of it.”

A beat. “Let me ask you something, Nick.” Cal closed the distance between them, mimicking the position leaning against the wall. “You say you ain’t scared of Prince and his lot, but I’ve seen a lot of behavior that directly contradicts that. And I haven’t heard from you once the so-called specifics of just how you got tangled up with him before. Now listen, I reckon we’re in this together now…and I’ve got a right to know some of this.”

Nick wouldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s not something I’m up to sharing.”

“Isn’t it?” Cal demanded. “Then how am I supposed to know I can trust you? How do I know this isn’t just some kind of trap?”

Paul turned his head, now meeting his eyes. “Do I look like something that would be a trap?”

It was John—John, and not Cal—who swallowed at that, his Adam’s apple bobbing a little as his eyes roamed over his face. “Maybe you do. But I’ve got to know where you stand in all this.”

Nick turned away, angling his body to straighten up, clearly aiming to walk away. “Look, I’ve had about enough of the accusations here—”

Cal seized him by the arm, turning him around and effectively pinning him in place against the wall, arms locked on either side of him to hold him in place. He hadn’t been exactly gentle, Paul certainly lost his breath for a moment, and John by now was so close that he could smell the alcohol on his breath. His eyes instinctively flew open more at the rough treatment, his own body language went on the defensive, as John shook his head.

“I’m through with those kind of answers! I want the truth out of you, now.”

“It’s complicated, Cal. I’ve got no loyalty to Prince though, you must understand that. I want this whole thing behind us as much as you do, believe me.”

“Should I? Give me one good reason to.”

“Because without me…you don’t have anybody else to turn to in this whole wide world. And I think that you know that.”

They cut then, Brian pausing to fuss over something with the sound equipment, and John seemed almost frozen in place for a moment—until Paul pulled at one of his arms so he could free himself. “Christ, John, just throw me into it next time—are you trying to bruise me up?”

“Don’t complain about it,” John told him with a roll of his eyes. “Honestly, don’t tell me you’ll be back to protesting every single little thing.”

“As long as _you’re_ not back to getting in whatever scraps you can with me,” Paul retorted in a low voice. “John, we said what happened last night—”

“Last night? Sure I don't know what you’re talking about.” His voice was acidic, barbed, but before he looked away again, Paul saw the expression on his face.

He swallowed hard, a small part of him wanting to reach out and touch him—but he forced himself to hold back. “I do think…I think it’s best if we just put it behind us, is all.”

“Yeah, you’ve said as much. I get it. Don’t worry, McCartney, it’s all put to bed.” He mimed zipping his lips shut with his hand, and something in Paul’s heart sank.

The day of shooting progressed on, no better or worse than it had been before—John was a little snippier with Paul, but not too terribly much. It only became evident watching some of the playback footage what else had gone awry here…and that was some of the chemistry. There was no more of their bodies subtly leaning in to each other, no more lingering gazes, no more of that quick-fire witty exchange volleying back and forth. Those were still there, of course, but it was plain to see that the new edge between the two of them didn’t translate well on the screen.

Brian began to give a perplexed frown about halfway through it, and finally unleashed a breath he seemed to have been holding at the end of it. “Well that was…good. Certainly fine. I do wonder though, what seems a little off here…not just from John, but you as well, Paul.”

He shifted from foot to foot. “I’m sorry, I just…having a bad day, I suppose. We can reshoot it.”

“Yes, we can, and we will. This scene is critical, it introduces so much more of what we need to know about Nick…I think we’d better run it again. And this time, _act.”_

By the time shooting finally wrapped several hours later, Paul was feeling exhausted and rather cross, utterly drained but still on tenterhooks. John could do any bit of acting well, by the end of it, he had managed to play his part convincingly, but there still seemed to be something too stiff and unnatural watching the pair of them on the footage later. The incident on the mountainside last night seemed to have damaged something, and a part of Paul wondered if they could get it back.

They had two days of a break before they left the studio and headed out to the desert, to film a scene on the train tracks that involved one of the riskiest parts in the movie yet. It would be refreshing to get a couple days to relax before then, and along with that…give John some time on his own. They needed a reprieve from each other as much as anything else at that point.

John was fairly quick to leave, but Paul stayed behind, talking to some of the crew members. George was nearly wrapping up some of the wires for their sound equipment, and cast him a quick look when many others were out of earshot.

“What’s gone on between you and Lennon, then?”

Paul folded his arms defensively, though did his best to sound nonchalant. “Nothing, really. John’s probably getting tired of me, that’s all.”

“You didn’t insult him in some way, did you? I’ve heard he can have a long memory for that sort of thing.”

“No, I…or if I did, it’s news to me. I think a few days rest ought to do him some good.”

“Yeah, enjoy that time off,” George muttered almost ruefully, draping a cloth over one of the cameras as he moved it out of the way, and Paul gave a small smile.

“Not getting any break yourself?”

“No rest for the weary, they say.”

“Well…try to get some all the same. Good night, George.”

“G’night.”

By the time Paul made it back to his trailer, all he could do was collapse onto a chair and rub at his temples, too exhausted yet wired to try and settle down into bed. It was too late to call Jane (relations had improved again in the time since she had told him to talk things out with John), too late to do much of anything…he switched a light on, deciding he could at least read until his eyes grew tired too.

Unbidden, his thoughts flew to the library John had in his own trailer, all those piles and piles of books. What sort of things did he like to read? Knowing John, he probably had a taste for absurdism, for fantastical things and witty novels, with the same sense of humor as him—god, but he could still feel his lips on his, how badly he had wanted more, how much he had wanted to sink into the scrubby grass and the dirt with him then and there and—

He all but dragged his hands down his face, threading his fingers through his hair like he could crush all the thoughts that lay within his head that way. It was just one kiss, just one stolen moment out on the windswept mountainside, and he had to banish all thoughts of it…and what was more, he couldn’t even pin it on it being his first kiss with a man, some kind of realization about himself that he was tripping over and trying to wrap his head around. In truth, Paul had come to terms with it some time ago, and the reason he had figured out all those stories about John was simply because…he knew where to ask by now. He knew where to look.

So there was no excuse at all, because all he'd wanted was the same thing.

It was another poor night of sleep, after Paul finally made it into bed. For once, it was good to wake up on his own time, with no obligations or places to be, just a whole day before him. He still dressed quickly, trying to make up his mind for what he wanted to do today. He’d go for a walk, he determined, finally putting his hat on, get something to eat and figure it out from there. Anything to get John Lennon out of his head.

A short breakfast soon led him to wandering the streets of downtown Hollywood, eventually coming to a halt outside of a movie theater. The marquee advertised a film called _It Happened One Night,_ starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. It was doing well in the box office, Paul had heard that much, and after a moment’s hesitation, he decided to go inside.

Perhaps it was a bit strange again, going to see a motion picture now that he was starring in them, but it was still hard to surpass the enjoyment he felt from seeing one, almost like being a kid again where he saved bits of pocket money to afford tickets to any and all shows being played in the area. It had been a little while since he’d allowed himself the simple indulgence and delight of such an activity, and so after he paid for a small package of unbuttered popped corn a boy was hawking outside the theater, he headed inside for the next showing due to start in fifteen minutes.

He settled in a seat in the back row, away from the relatively crowded area towards the front—for a little while at least, two hours in a movie theater, he’d like to spend some time without being recognized or without worrying about hiding his face. The cover of darkness here would provide him with that for a little while. Before the newsreel began, the lush red velvet curtains were still drawn on the screen, and dull lighting allowed for people to find their seats without tripping over themselves.

The lights were finally dimming, the curtains parted and the newsreel beginning to play when Paul felt it—something small but irritating hit his left arm. He glanced down, squinting in the light from the screen, and caught sight of a popcorn kernel on his sleeve. Bemused, he flicked it away, and made to focus on the screen where something about football teams was running, but within moments, another kernel came flying over and hit him again.

Paul looked over into the seats opposite the aisle and received an unpleasant, stomach-turning shock—there was John, absolutely unmistakable even in the shadows, shoveling popcorn into his mouth and looking over at him. When Paul’s mouth fell open a little, John mimed tossing some of the popcorn in his hand over his way, and Paul almost snorted aloud.

He leaned over, closing some of the distance between them, as John obligingly scooted a few seats down so he could hear better. “What the hell are you doing here?” Paul hissed in a low voice, and John raised his eyebrows in mock offense.

“Why, I’m here to enjoy the picture, same as you.”

Well, he was entitled to do that much—Paul could hardly be upset for that. “Well, fine. But quit throwing bits of popcorn at me like we’re kids.”

“Oho! It was only for a bit of fun—”

“Hey, you two back there!” One man a couple rows ahead of them twisted in his seat, bringing a finger to his lips. “Keep it down!”

“How very rude,” John drawled, but Paul sank lower in his seat, doing his best to ignore his co-star off to the side and just focus on the screen. The newsreel was a depressing one, scenes of people clamored outside soup kitchens and standing on street corners with signs advertising their labor was for the taking, and something in that made his heart sink. John behaved for much of the reel, until the opening credits began to play, and then he moved deftly across the aisle, to take a seat much closer to Paul’s.

Over the cheerful swell of the music, Paul managed to splutter at him, “What are you doing? I thought you were upset with me too.”

“Who, me? Upset? Haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about.” He flipped one of the pieces of popcorn in the air and deftly caught it in his mouth again, a fine sort of trick, and Paul fought both a small smile and a roll of his eyes.

However, the sudden mood change was more than a little disconcerting. “So what…you’ve decided to forgive me?”

“Did I say that?” There was something more pointed in John’s tone now, and a woman in front of them turned to make a shushing sound.

Paul waited a moment, then lowered his voice even further, leaning over to bridge some of the empty seats that lay between them. “I told you before, I’m not interested in any bullshit, John. I don’t… _want_ there to be any bad feeling between us, but I can’t take all this wishy-washy stuff.”

But John seemed to have gone silent, only carefully munching away on his popcorn, and Paul fell back into his own seat with a small huff then. The opening act was playing, depicting a scene on a yacht and a dark-haired young woman arguing with her naval uniform-clad father about a man she had recently eloped with against his wishes.

_“You’ve always been a stubborn idiot.”_

_“I come from a long line of stubborn idiots!”_

John gave a little chortle at that, and within moments, tensions had escalated enough between the father and daughter that the latter, Ellie, first flipped a table, then made a break for freedom, running off to the deck of the yacht before she flung herself overboard and into the water. The audience laughed as she swam for shore, the crew behind her scrambling to find a way to retrieve her from the water, and in that moment, John leaned over to speak to Paul again.

“I’m quite prepared to put the whole thing behind me, if you really must know. If you want to do the same thing.”

“Yes, John, of course I do,” Paul said with marked relief—though cautiously so. “I mean it…that’s for the best…”

“So it didn’t mean anything to you then?”

Paul’s heart sank at that—he didn’t think it could have been so easy, and John moved smoothly along after only a small beat of stunned hurt. “…good. Me neither.”

“John, it’s not like that—if it had been at any other time, under different circumstances—”

“Things would have gone another way?”

“I…I can’t—”

It was just then that a uniformed usher appeared beside them in the aisle, a stern expression on his face. “Excuse me, but I’ve got to ask you both to stay quiet, or I’ll have to see you removed from the theater.”

“Is that so?” John flashed his infamous movie star smile, and the usher looked at him blankly for a moment before declaring flatly, “Yes, it is. Now please keep quiet while the picture’s playing.”

“I don’t know him,” Paul tried to distance himself, gesturing to John, but the usher just gave him a scathing look.

He retreated then, and John let out a small indignant huff. “The sheer cheek—pretending as if he didn’t recognize me.”

“I think he really didn’t,” Paul pointed out, and John looked even _more_ offended at that.

“Please—he’s had to have seen at least one of mine. Not even that _Life and Times_ movie?”

“I saw that one,” Paul admitted. “I think it was the first one…you know, that I saw with you in it.”

John seemed to straighten up a little at that. “Oh? And what did you think of it?”

“It was all right. Plot was a bit thin, but I do remember really liking the lead actor. He had…something.”

“Did he?” John asked around a smile, and Paul just responded by flicking a bit of popcorn at him.

They managed to remain quiet for a little while, watching as the lead actress ran into Clark Gable himself, playing Peter, a wily newspaper reporter who needed a new story. Ellie’s star-crossed romance seemed like perfect material to him, and he agreed to help her reunite with her sweetheart in exchange for her telling him his tale of woe. Right away, there was a playful animosity in how they worked with each other, and everyone in the theater couldn’t keep from laughing, especially at one hitchhiking scene where Ellie one-upped a luckless Peter by flagging a car down immediately via hiking her skirt up and sticking out one stocking-clad leg.

About halfway through, John had apparently ran out of popcorn, and he deliberately moved himself even closer to Paul so he could nick some from his own bag. Their hands brushed, and they exchanged a quick glance—only broken by John throwing one of the kernels at him, and Paul responding in turn until something of a miniature war had broken out.

“Stop, stop!” He managed to tell him when he stamped out his already stifled laughter. “We’re going to get thrown right out of the theater.”

“Yeah, and what of it?”

“Well, we have to see how it ends, don’t we?”

“The sacrifices I make,” John lamented, but kept the racket down—his hand was still lying awfully close to Paul’s, only divided by the arm of the seat. Close enough to take. They remained that way for a while, neither of them daring to break whatever fragile spell was left here, until an emotional scene between Peter and Ellie setting up camp for bed broke out, the night before their journey together was to come to an end.

Ellie hesitated, watching the sheet that provided a divider in the room between her and her male companion. _“Have you ever been in love, Peter? Haven’t you ever thought about it at all? It seems to me you could make some girl wonderfully happy.”_

Gable’s response, voice soft and wistful in the otherwise quiet of the night. _“Sure I've thought about it … I've even been sucker enough to make plans. You know, I saw an island in the Pacific once. I've never been able to forget it. That's where I'd like to take her. She'd have to be the sort of a girl who'd... well, who'd jump in the surf with me and love it as much as I did. You know, nights when you and the moon and the water all become one. You feel you're part of something big and marvelous. That's the only place to live... where the stars are so close over your head you feel you could reach up and stir them around. Certainly, I've been thinking about it. Boy, if I could ever find a girl who was hungry for those things...”_

Ellie, whose eyes had been increasingly filling with tears, tore down the division between them to speak to him in a voice throbbing with conviction. _“Take me with you, Peter. Take me to your island. I want to do all those things you talked about.”_

_“You’d better go back to your bed.”_

_“I love you. Nothing else matters. We can run away. Everything will take care of itself. Please, Peter, I can't let you out of my life now. I couldn't live without you.”_

She was crying in his arms now, and somewhere in the darkness and stillness that had fallen over the theater, Paul and John’s fingers had found each other. They weren’t quite holding hands, not like that, but it was enough to create the most distinct form of pressure as their fingers moved together, sliding and almost twining. Paul had to hold his breath, hardly daring to take another one, as if afraid he would ruin it somehow, afraid to ruin the moment.

A tear-stricken Ellie was being escorted back to her bed on screen, and it quite suddenly seemed like John had had enough. Abruptly, he got to his feet, shattering the connection as he swiftly moved from the theater, refusing to look back at Paul once. After a few moments of stunned shock, Paul finally got to his own feet and followed after him.

Exiting the theater, Paul found him outside in a back alley nearby, puffing away on a cigarette. He looked morose, somehow lost, and when he glanced over at Paul, his eyes almost seemed curiously shiny.

“Oh…come on now, the movie isn’t _that_ bad,” Paul made a feeble attempt at a joke, but he wasn’t sure what else might work. “And you’re going to make us miss the ending if we’re out here.”

“I think I can take a guess at how it ends,” John said, almost bitterly, tapping some of the ashes out. “Ellie is prepared to leave then, but she simply can’t—she can’t go through with it. And Peter, meanwhile, is going to give her up for what he thinks is her own benefit…he doesn’t take the ransom money offered for her safe return, and he leaves with a broken heart. But fear not—it wouldn’t be the sort of picture it is without a happy ending. It’ll all end with things tied neatly in a bow.”

“I…I imagine it will too,” Paul ventured cautiously. “That’s how those things go, after all—it’s part of why people like the movies, I suppose. The happy endings.”

“Oh, don’t try and wax philosophical with me,” John said, sounding weary all of a sudden. “I know what the movie’s here to do. I know about happy endings. This isn’t the moving pictures, it’s real life—us, here and now.”

Paul’s throat seemed to go dryer at that, he found himself both wanting to move away but also close the distance between them. “…us?”

“Yeah, me and you. The other night up on that hilltop—that’s all we’re ever going to have. And I thought maybe that was all you really wanted, but today…all of it—” He seemed to fight with himself for a moment, then finally chucked the last end of his cigarette away. “I’m not going to push you into anything. Maybe you really _have_ made yourself perfectly plain, and idiot me’s simply missed it.”

“No…no, I haven’t been…” Paul struggled for a moment to organize his swirling thoughts, John’s impassive face but alert, intense, like always, eyes very much all but boring into him. “I can’t tell what it is that I want, John. Except for one thing—I want to keep making this picture with you. I do! Doesn’t that mean anything at all?”

“Does it? Might be, but I wonder if that’s really _all_ of it.”

Several cars rumbled past on the street nearby, causing Paul to nearly jolt a little—they weren’t out in the open by any means, but hardly in complete seclusion either. “John, please…what more do you want me to say? You know how I feel, you must. It’s just everything else…you must know what that’s like too—”

“I do,” John cut him off. “I do. You don’t get to where I am now without cutting bits of yourself out along the way. But maybe you’ve already realized that too.”

He no longer sounded biting, cutting, and that almost would have been preferable—this duller, more hollow version of John was causing Paul pain of his own. John moved to walk past him, once again, he had to be the first one to leave—and Paul could have stopped him, could have reached out and grabbed him, and he _should_ have…but he couldn’t.

“I’ll see you on set,” John managed to say over his shoulder, a curt dismissal one might give to a co-worker…as they were. As they had always been. And what they’d well and truly have to remain.

 

***

“Cut! That’s a wrap!”

A loud siren blared across the set, echoing into the fading sun in the desert sky. With the loss of natural light, even the electric ones that had been set up to frame the scene would be fighting a losing battle. After around thirteen hours work done for the day, it was finally time to break until morning, when they’d all be up bright and early to do it over again.

The train scene, filmed using an actual locomotive out here on an artificial set of railway tracks, had proven to be a thrilling one. On the way to Louisville, Kentucky, Cal and Nick’s train was mysteriously derailed, a set of the tracks obliterated by an explosion. The resulting pyrotechnic display took some time to do even once, let alone over and over again, a tricky maneuver that they could only afford to repeat so many times in a row.

What was more, the scene just before the derailment was one of the most thrilling in the movie—a scuffle on top of the train cars that culminated in one of the men after that being thrown off the cars and right to his death. There was blood on both Cal and Nick’s hands, a secret that they were bonded together over, but the man had only been something intended to keep them busy anyway—while the rest of the plan unfolded. They still had their suitcase full of money to deliver, but Cal was beginning to suspect outside forces at play…and rather suspected Nick of knowing more about it than he let on.

They had a tension-filled walk through the desert to work all that out. Or at least, they did later, but first they’d run this scene again tomorrow. It had been a long, physically demanding day on set, full of wanting to speak to John in between takes but never finding the nerve, and Paul was looking forward to retreating to his trailer for the night—they had brought the whole caravan out here to the California desert, a bustling hub of movie-related activity just plopped down in the middle of a dry stretch of land and red mountains.

He was just heading back, thinking he might pinch something from craft services again before he collapsed into bed, already dreaming of how good it was going to feel, when he heard a sharp hissing sound from just above him. “Oi! You got a minute there, McCartney?”

Paul looked up and squinted, shielding his face from the sun, and clamped eyes on Ringo perched on top of one of the train cars, puffing away on a cigarette with his legs dangling. Ringo had a scene as Victor Prince, another passenger on the train but in a different car, and Paul had been impressed hanging around the set and watching him work today. He could discard that friendly, good-natured image that clung to him so well easily enough, the slow, baritone voice also lending itself well to the measured speech of the film’s villain. It had been almost unnerving, to see him lose that typical side of him like a snake shedding its skin.

“Sure thing.” Paul seized onto the metal ladder on the side of the car, easily pulling himself up and joining Ringo, sitting down next to him to share a companionable smoke. There was a simple, pleasant silence for a short while, a nice change of pace from the hectic day of non-stop talking they had both experienced today, and it was a bit of time again before Ringo finally spoke up.

“I got to watch some of the footage from the rest of the film the other day. You’ll have to forgive me, I…well, I liked your other film. I did. I thought you’d be all right in this one too, but you’re, uh…you’re really something else here. Never thought John would have such stiff competition for who eats most of the scene.”

“I’m still not sure that he does,” Paul remarked, aiming to stay humble as he took a drag—but evidence of a smile must have been visible around it all the same, though perhaps rather feeble than it might have been once. Before.

“Believe me, I’ve seen him act with plenty of people…and whatever it is, you’ve got it, son. You both look dead natural up there.”

“That…that means a lot to hear,” Paul said honestly, though it also felt like something was twisting a little in his chest—perhaps they could gain some of that back, but what if it was too late? Not just for that, for their working relationship, but…anything else? Anything else that he _had_ to squash the yearning for, no matter how badly he kept thinking about it, no matter what he wanted…

“Ah, it’s nothing. We’ll see what the critics have to say in the end, but my guess is that anyone with two working eyes can see it. You and him.”

“Oh…oh really?” He hadn’t meant it in any other way, not _that_ way, but it still caused something like a flip in his heart as he thought it over.

“And the talk around set is that you’re still giving him a run for his money, what with the attitude and all,” Ringo chuckled. “George says it’s a sight to see. Might be it’s some kind of gift.”

“I hope not, there’s only room for so many insufferable people here,” Paul joked, though stomach still mildly in knots over the previous statement—and at that, Ringo’s smile faded a little as he looked out towards the bleeding sunset in the sky.

“You could say that of a lot of different things are like that. Maybe this whole business, like. And that’s why when you find people that are real…well, it makes a difference. John may be an arsehole sometimes, but he’s honest. And I think deep down his heart is in the right place.”

“One could say the same of you,” Paul countered, and aiming to steer the conversation out of semi-dangerous waters. “And I don’t think you ought to have worried about branching out and taking a different kind of role either—I know what I saw today too.”

Ringo beamed at that, a smile that lit his otherwise sad-looking face right up. “Oh, now you’re laying it on thick—still. Insincere people have their perks, too.”

They sat and chatted for a little while longer, about back home for both of them, so far across the ocean—Ringo had an on and off-again girlfriend, and Paul had Jane, but talking about her just further expanded the pit in his stomach. As horrible as it was to think, and as much as a part of him did still miss her, he’d been so otherwise caught up in things that she simply didn’t cross his mind as much as she ought to. As much as she deserved to. A long-distance relationship was lousy, to be sure, but hadn’t he anticipated that going into this?

He didn’t want to dwell on those thoughts for much longer, that was for sure. He parted on good terms with Ringo, electing to go for a walk in the dusk to get moving again, to try and clear his head. What Ringo had said about him and John…well, it was true, wasn’t it? A perfectly innocuous expression to make, but the way Paul thought about it wasn’t. It was so plain to see how they were drawn to each other, something that had developed on its own…and maybe Ringo was right about something else too. Maybe things that were real here made all the difference in the world. And maybe there was no way—and sometimes no reason—to avoid them when they occurred.

His wandering feet carried him where he wanted to go—right to John’s trailer. The man himself was outside it, just stubbing a cigarette out under his foot, and looked up at the sound of feet. By now, the purple light of dusk was decorating the sky with a plane of stars, so many out here in the desert, and the last dregs of the setting sun gleamed around John’s hair. Some errant strands he had to flick free of his face, and the gesture wasn’t lost on Paul…nor was the way he was already casually dressed for the evening, suspenders dangling loose and shirt untucked. They looked at each other for the longest moment as a warm desert breeze whipped past, and it was finally Paul who spoke first.

“I need to tell you something, John. I need to be honest.”

John didn’t say anything snide or otherwise, but nodded for him to go on, and Paul took a deep breath as he slowly began to close the distance between them. “Ringo was just telling me he’s watched some of the movie footage. And he says that we…the two of us…look natural together. I guess sort of like…like it was meant to be. Maybe we were.”

For half a second, a flickering sort of smile seemed to dance across John’s face, but the more guarded, neutral expression soon clicked back into pace. “Of course. We’ve been over this now, several times. We’ve got to keep it up for the movie’s sake and all.”

“The movie’s important to me,” Paul admitted. “But it’s not just _that,_ John. You knew it wasn’t before I did. I don’t want…I _can’t_ go on pretending like that doesn’t mean anything to me. You know?”

Almost too quick to notice, John’s tongue briefly wetted his lips, his gaze now boring right into Paul’s—so much so that if an explosion happened nearby, he might not have looked away. “But you said it yourself—no matter what’s there, we’ve got a job to do. Using your own words, McCartney, don’t play wounded with me.”

“I’m not wounded—not yet. But what I am is…well, tired, I s’pose. I’m _tired,_ John, tired of just sitting and waiting for things to either happen for me or for things to blow over. I’m not where I am now because I let what I wanted pass me by. You’ve got to understand that too.”

John’s mouth had parted slightly, eyes raking across Paul’s face, and his voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. “Don’t tell me you’re winding me up here, Paul. Please, for the love of god, I could never—”

“I’m not,” Paul insisted fiercely, and he strode forward, knowing full well what he was about to do, what had hardly given him a minute’s peace since his first taste of it. He might have said more, but instead let the emotions and the actions run together, let them translate into how he cupped John’s face, noting the firmness of his jaw, pausing a beat for one last chance to end this between them—but then John’s fingers came to twine in his hair instead, bringing their lips back together, and Paul was pushing him up against the trailer in the next moment, meeting him midway for kiss after kiss.

It was something like dissolving, this feeling, like melting—but somehow like growing too, like building into someone and something else that could see more than you had before. That understood more, maybe, but it seemed to Paul like the only thing he had to know now was how he felt for the man with him, and what he wanted to do from here. His mouth moved to graze along that jaw, John’s ragged breathing spilling into his ears as he felt his hands roam down, smoothing over the plane of his chest through his shirt.

There was too much he wanted to touch, everywhere and all at once, after weeks of dancing around it, and John was kissing his neck as he tugged at his clothes, seeking to free his shirt from his waistband, and it was only one particularly insistent one that got Paul to freeze. John did too, face flushed in the glow of a light nearby and his expression almost nervous now, but Paul just nodded towards John’s trailer behind them.

“C’mon…we’d better get in there before we’re down in the dirt.”

“And what’s so wrong about that?” John teased, still sounding breathless, but Paul gave him a little tug to lead him up the steps to the trailer.

“Not in the open. Come on.”

They managed to make it up the stairs and through the door, at least, before John was kicking it shut behind him and then going right back for Paul’s clothes. Hands seemed to be everywhere, mouths meeting for frantic, desperate kisses here and there again, until John had Paul’s shirt torn open and a hand palming the bulge in his pants. Paul’s breath hitched at that, and he felt John’s notable grin against the skin of his neck.

“What do we have here, then?”

“Oh, _you_ ought to know.” By now, he’d worked open John’s shirt as well, letting it peel from his torso as he traced the smooth skin of his chest, devoid of an abundance of hair. But it was warm, firm and yet yielding, and Paul let his fingers graze down it as John pressed his mouth into his neck, leaving insistent, encouraging kisses there.

It seemed as if all of the sprawling desert just outside their makeshift camp, and the glittering city of Hollywood that lay miles beyond it, simply all of it—had been compressed, bundled up here until the world as Paul knew it lay within the walls of this ramshackle trailer. All of that, what lay beyond, society and the press and his career and even Jane, seemed to no longer matter for right here and right now, because what did was already shivering and squirming right under his roaming hands, hissed curse words already starting to slip through his lips. What more could he possibly think of? What room was left?

They were still only haphazardly undressed by the time they tumbled into the little bed in John’s trailer, barely big enough to hold one person but now making do for two. John touched him reverently, almost curiously at first, fingers winding through coarse black hair where a wandering mouth came trailing after, and Paul only just had time to anchor his fingers in his own auburn hair before John was taking him in his mouth, and the stars gleaming in the sky outside were nothing compared to the ones exploding just beyond his vision now.

His grip tightened almost brutally once more, then finally slackened, one long shaky breath leaving him as his head tipped back against the pillow. For a few moments, he floated weightless in a sort of overwhelming bliss, as a warm mouth trailed its way back up his body. “Maybe since the first time I clapped eyes on you,” John said raggedly, his breath hot on his skin. “Holy hell, have I wanted to do that.”

Paul gave a breathless sort of laugh, nudging at his shoulder while rolling over a little bit, the better to see him. “No! Surely not since the first time?”

“You have no idea,” John said with a smirk, moving some of his fingers to touch Paul’s lips—and when he playfully moved his tongue to suck on them, his breath hitched in his throat. Paul moved a hand down John’s own chest again, over the rippling abdomen and to his cock, and gave something of a smile of his own.

“Lie down, love—your turn now.”

He’d been with other men before, but none with whom he had spent the past month or so in such a uniquely close atmosphere, no one with whom a tension had been growing and growing until like a dam it burst, far too much to try and shove aside. Yet it was still almost surreal—to hear wise-cracking John, always so smooth and witty on the silver screen as he typically was in real life, coming undone, broken, desperate sounds leaving him as Paul first pumped his hand over him, then brought him into his mouth.

For a long while, that was simply all that it was—all that it really needed to be. There was little talking, but faint traces of mutual laughter as they attempted to navigate around in the tiny bed, as they touched each other over and over again. Paul lost track of all the kisses, his mouth feeling bruised and swollen in the best possible way when all was said and done. Bliss rolled through him like a gentle wave in the ocean, and when they were both finally too weary to go on, their breathing regulating once more in tandem seemed to speak volumes too.

John had to drop his weary head into the crook of Paul’s neck, and he found strength left yet to twine some strands of faintly damp hair around his fingers. A part of him desperately ached for a cigarette, or at least something to drink, but it seemed like too much to try and move the weight beside him. John’s last coherent sentence was something like, “Don’t you forget—” before he trailed off, and Paul was left to ponder on that for a few minutes in the still darkness, so utterly spent his own mind only had the energy to latch onto one clear thought himself.

This—whatever it was—could only keep going until filming was complete, until their work here was done. Certainly not forever.

Maybe there was a part of him, suspended in that moment just before sleep finally crashed over him, that wanted it to.

***

It was slow-going come the next morning. Paul awoke not suddenly and all at once, but slowly, languidly, as if drifting through a pool. It was now light inside the trailer, and a warm body was still pressed up against his. John, of course, was still asleep, the faintest sound of his breaths able to be overheard, and Paul let his fingers fan out along his back, in between his shoulder blades, to feel that rhythm under his touch for a moment.

So it hadn’t been just a dream.

As if sensing Paul’s own more alert state of being, within a few minutes, John was just beginning to stir too. His hair was wonderfully mussed, though Paul’s must have been in an even worse state, both of them so different from the usual coif. When John’s eyes slowly flickered open, they shifted up to Paul then, and a lazy, luxurious smile soon followed. “Well…good morning to you.”

“Good morning.” And Paul moved to kiss him, to capture one last bit of last night—but when he opened his eyes again and let them flick upwards, they landed squarely on a clock perched on a nearby table. What he saw there was roughly the equivalent of tossing an entire bucket of ice cold water on him.

“Oh, _fuck—_ oh, Jesus Christ! John, we’ve only got half an hour until call time!”

“So what?” John groused, stretching out in bed a little more.

“So? We’ve got another important scene today, and oh god—”

Paul was moving to detangle himself from the tight space, the blankets, and John—none of which let him go easily. “Oh, fuck the call time,” John protested, hand coming up to stroke his arm. “Frankly, I can think of more productive ways to spend my morning.”

“And we’ve got to get to hair and makeup yet too—”

“They can’t be in that much of a hurry yet, can they?” John asked, folding his arms behind his head as he relinquished Paul, letting him hop to his feet and scurry around to find his clothes. “Only no one’s come beating down my door yet—actually, I like you out of bed too, just stay right there—”

Paul responded by chucking a loose sock at him, and John gave a little laugh as he lowered his hands. “Listen—we’re already going to be late at this rate. Don’t try and give yourself a stroke here. Anyways, Brian ought to be pleased, really, didn’t he say we needed to start getting along?”

“I’m not entirely sure if he meant screwing your co-star, though. Did it get lost in the fine print?” Paul fired back, sliding on his pants and hunting around for a shirt.

“If this was in the contract, I might actually read it next time,” John drawled, and began feeling around for a pack of cigarettes—evidently in no hurry as Paul was. It was then and only then that a sharp rap came at the door, and Paul instinctively crouched behind the little kitchen table here like he was dodging gunfire.

“Mr. Lennon!” George’s unmistakable voice, sounding world-weary already. “Thirty minutes until call! Are you up yet?”

“Mind your own business, son!” John yelled back, and gave a chortle under his breath then. “God, whatever they’re paying him, it isn’t enough—”

“Brian told me to stay…right out here until you leave yourself. I’ve got to make sure you’re coming along.”

At this, John swore quietly. “Persistent little cuss, isn’t he? How’s that for a watchdog—”

“Never mind that,” Paul hissed back in a low voice. “We can’t go out there together! George and who knows else is outside, and I’m not supposed to be here!”

“Oh…oh yeah.” Comprehension dawned on John’s face for a moment as he mulled it over, and then his whole expression suddenly brightened. “Wait a tick—I’ve got it. I’m supposed to be this incurable nightmare on set, aren’t I?”

“‘Supposed’ to be?” Paul raised an eyebrow despite the current situation, and John pulled a face.

“You know damn well what I mean. Listen, I’ll go out there and I’ll throw a fit—complain about the movie, the set, whatever. Lure our friend George and anyone else clear of the place, and then, you take the opportunity and race on out of here.”

He was grinning, evidently pleased with himself, and Paul had to return the gesture. “Well, it’s…it’s nothing we can’t pull off, right? I certainly haven’t got any better ideas.”

John bounded to his feet—it seemed that the notion of pulling the wool over people’s eyes and getting them all worked up for nothing appealed to him. The both of them got dressed then, reclaiming clothes and getting everything nipped and tucked into place. There came another banging at the door while Paul was just getting his shoes on, and John turned to give a shout.

“Will you give me a minute here? And when I get out there, oh, have I got something to say!”

“Careful, you’re going to have the whole set turned upside-down soon,” Paul said in a low voice to him, trying to stifle a grin, and John turned around as he buttoned his shirt up, taking most of the traces of skin with it—it felt like Paul had navigated his way around every freckle covered up now.

“Ah, so let ‘em be. It won’t be anything they can’t handle.” He leaned forward then, closing the gap and spontaneously stealing a kiss—something so light and yet surprisingly natural that Paul about chased after it when they parted. “Mm. I guess I’ll be seeing you again soon, then. At least ten minutes, McCartney…that’s what I can give you now.”

“Oh, come on, Johnny…you can do better than that.”

Their smiles were almost something scheming, as if they shared a secret—and now, after all, they did. Something to be hidden, but also something that seemed to already be buoying the both of them up, light on their feet.

“I’ll see you on the set,” John said simply. “But for right now…I’ve got a major bone to pick.” He took a deep breath, looking away like he was mentally readying himself, and after a few moments, slammed open the trailer door. He strode outside, kicking it shut once more behind him, and over the small chorus of voices that rose to greet him Paul could still hear him bellow, “I don’t think I can fucking go on like this! Not like this, let me tell you all, I’ve camped out in the damn jungle for a picture before and conditions weren’t as bad as this. My energy wasn’t as bad as it is now!”

“I…well…” It was George spluttering, sounding horribly perplexed but determined to still go on. “If it’s a problem with the trailer, we can speak to—”

“No, it’s the whole thing, the whole damn thing! My acting’s no good, the pacing is all wrong—don’t even get me started on that McCartney.”

He’d been plenty eager to get started on him last night, Paul thought wryly as he dared to peek past the curtains that lined the small glass window of the trailer. John was just visible outside, gesturing wildly to George and a few other crew members, many of whom looked aghast at the display.

“I need to see Brian right away,” John fumed, starting to pace like a caged lion. “I need to go and see him _now,_ none of it is any damn good!”

George exchanged a wary look with his fellow assistants, before he finally spoke up cautiously. “All right, we’ll…we’ll go and bring all this up to Brian. McCartney’s bound to be on the set by now too.”

“He had better be,” John said sourly, and marched off with a firm gait—leaving the crew members to trail in his wake like cautious, perplexed little boats in the wake of an immense (and very loud) ocean liner. John didn’t look back once, and Paul counted to thirty, enough time for them and anyone else to be given some distance, before he snuck his way out of the trailer.

He found a mirror in the makeshift wardrobe department, taking the time to give himself one last look-over before he let the crew members there get started on him. With that and makeup completed, he moved at a swift clip over to where the crew was standing by the makeshift train tracks and the locomotive itself, cameras ready and waiting for the action to begin.

John was there already, pacing around a bewildered-looking Brian and complaining loudly about the state of his psyche—it was wrong, all wrong, unless he was out of this mental collapse, he simply couldn’t go on. Paul fought a smile, well and truly, but schooled his expression again into one of more neutral-looking displeasure as he strode onto the scene himself.

“Bloody hell, what’s all the racket about!”

John rounded on him then, and in one brief moment of exchanged glances, the warmth there was apparent—before John let his lip curl again. “Oh, I can hardly stand to look at _you_ right now!”

“Like it or not, you’re stuck with me,” Paul said coolly, as Brian hastened over to him.

“Oh, Paul, thank god—where on earth have you been? I don’t know what _more_ has gotten into John, unless the sun’s gone and addled his mind or something absurd…you didn’t happen to say anything, did you? Only he’s got quite a temper…”

“Me?” Briefly, his thoughts flashed back to last night. “No, I haven’t done a thing to him. Who can tell sometimes?”

“Yes, yes, well…now _isn’t_ the time.” Drops of sweat were beading on his forehead that he dabbed away with a handkerchief, and up close, Paul could see for himself how much more anxious and pale Brian really looked right now. He gave an alert nod at that, like a soldier taking orders.

“I completely understand. Let me see if maybe I can talk to him.”

When he approached John and put a hand on his shoulder, he tensed up first—and so did just about everyone else in the vicinity. But beneath Paul’s grip, he felt him exhale then, like he had been holding a long breath, more of him relaxing…and Paul spoke delicately, carefully.

“Come on now, Johnny, old boy. Let’s get through one more day. You’ve got to push a person off the top of a moving train car several times today, that’ll make you feel better, won’t it? Good way to clear the mind, I imagine.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched—this close, it was impossible not for both of them to think of the previous night, of rolling together in a cramped bed, no space at all left to hide anything. It stayed with them here now, and John titled his head back and made a show of groaning.

“Oh, fine, _fine…_ we’ve got to keep going. But we may have to destroy every reel of film from today afterwards, I’m simply _awful._ I can’t work like this.”

It might have been one of the boldest lies ever told—because John shone that day. The scene was fast-paced and packed with suspense, like the train once it got rolling, there was no getting off of it. It simply didn’t let go. John was that way too, when he transformed into a desperate and dogged Cal, hunted down by men he had known once, shadows from the past manifested into real, dangerous forms. When he killed the one after them, in reality pushing nothing else but a dummy off the side of the train, Paul thought he might really be sick with the madly wide eyes, the washed-out expression, voice thick with shock.

“There’ll be hell to pay for that one.”

“Now we’ve gone and done it!” Nick responded in turn, voice almost lost around the howling wind of the train hurtling past. “It’s over, Cal, there’s no turning back now—we’ve made our bed and now we have to lie in it!”

There was one prolonged pause, one tension-filled moment where they made eye contact and it looked like one of them might be five seconds away from sending the other to join the man underneath the tracks—but a rattle interrupted it, breaking the suspense. They had little choice then but to climb down off the train and return to their seats, though they wouldn’t remain there for very long.

The explosion used to “derail” the train was an immense thing, a boom that echoed throughout the wide space around the set, the car jerked aggressively to send the two mains and all the extras within it screeching straight off the track. The motion was so sudden it sent Paul knocking right into John, both of them nearly careening into the window. Many of the other sound effects would need to be dubbed back in later, but there still came a shrieking metal sound and squealing wheels that nearly had them all covering their ears.

Nearly—but when the loud bell rang out inside to indicate that they had cut and that the scene was over, once the cameras had turned away, what mostly registered with Paul was how close to John he’d become in the resulting  tumble—and he could hardly help but laugh. John was too, turning around to just lightly nudge him with his shoulder.

“You all right, there?”

“Oh…I’m fine.”

What was more, Brian seemed well-pleased too when they all assembled again before breaking for the day. “Well, I have to say…I think that scene on the train rather spoke for itself! Paul, your pacing could be a little better, but overall I’d say…whatever it is you both are doing there, keep doing it.”

Paul deliberately avoided John’s eyes at that, just nodded along as Brian and some other assistants flipped through their notes and read them aloud. They were done for the day, but not before something else occurred to the director.

“Oh, and that reminds me…we should have some official publicity shots and movie posters ready for us when we’re back in the studio. I couldn’t be more excited to see how they turned out.”

People filtered out of the set in trickles, leaving it behind once more as the sun went down, and Paul took his time walking back to his trailer. He’d have to give Jane a call, he thought with a sudden guilty lurch, once he was back to where he had a working phone system again—she would want to hear how things were going. _Well, sweetheart, funny you should ask…you know how you said John and I should work to get along??_

He came up short when he got just outside the cluster of trailers, to where his own was stationed—but so help him, he smiled, not wholly surprised. “Don’t tell me you’ve been mooning around out here for a while now.”

“I just thought I’d…drop by,” John remarked, oh-so-nonchalantly, straightening up from his slouching position. He moved forward, looking eager to make some sort of contact with him, and Paul seized him by the hand and pulled him inside the trailer with him before he let anything happen. Once they were safely in, once he had turned around, the kisses came quickly—and he had to laugh aloud at the open, brazen display of affection.

So it was still real. Not something they’d bury behind them as a one-off on a sultry night.

“That was good today, wasn’t it?” John asked him, one hand still loosely cupping his face. “Personally, I think we ought to blow up some _more_ things on the set.”

“Not me. Think my ears are still ringing a bit.”

“Oh, poor baby.”

They sat down in the two seats Paul had squished inside her by the table, but their hands remained intertwined—rather as of its own, Paul’s thumb could hardly keep from stroking the skin just under it. John studied him for a moment, then said quietly, “It was good on set today. But I want to know where we go from here beside that. How long are we going to…keep this up? You want to, don’t you?”

He looked as if he could kick himself for asking the last question, and Paul squeezed his hand. “Yes, of course I do.” That much he knew for sure, however uncertain some of the rest of it seemed to be. “I want to. It’s one of those…I don’t know—on-set flings, is it?”

John lifted their hands so he could press a quick kiss to Paul’s. “Something like that.”

Paul got them both a dinner from craft services, and a bottle of wine that they split. They spoke of the day they had had, of some of John’s other experiences on movie sets, which led to Paul recounting near-misses and definitive mishaps on the stage of live theater until they both had to stifle their laughter for fear it would be too loud.

And they went to bed together again too, afterwards lying in a loosely-tangled heap of sweat-slicked bodies, Paul curled around John and letting his hand unfurl near his heart like a flower in the first rays of dawn, right over where he could hear the steady beat under it. He pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and John twisted his head enough to look back at him.

“This is what you call an on-set fling? How are you with the people you have _real_ relationships with?”

“This is real too,” Paul pointed out. “Don’t act like it isn’t, even if it’s only lasting…as long as filming does. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

A slight beat. “Yeah, it does. We won’t, uh…be seeing as much of each other anymore. You’ll be off to make some other song and dance picture—”

Paul nudged him at that. “You know damn well I haven’t thought about that yet. Not that far ahead.”

“No,” John murmured. “Nor have I. I never do.”

Something melancholy seemed to be stealing over him again, however faint, and it troubled Paul—but they had to make some things clear, didn’t they? All the same, he shifted his hand, moving it so he could gently turn John’s head back around again.

“Let’s not talk about that right now.”

“Oh? What do you suggest we do instead?”

“I can think of better ideas,” Paul responded, and pulled him in for one more kiss. There would be time later, he decided, to worry about what might lay ahead, where this would have to end—for now, they had tonight. The rest of it could simply get in line.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again, and many thanks to those who waited patiently for the next update...a lot of irl stuff hit me at once and i simply wasn't very motivated to finish. but here it is! 
> 
> the "pansy craze" of around 1930-33, leading to the rise of underground nightclubs and drag balls called "pansy clubs," was a very real part of gay subculture around the time--especially in places like new york and LA. by the end of prohibition, they were on a slow decline, but some stuck around for some time afterwards. many famous drag queens rose to prominence during the era, it's a fascinating little portion of history and too pertinent not to use here.
> 
> also, my friend baecon showed me an electric swing remix of "honey pie", which is both outstanding and very fitting to the fic itself! have a listen to it [ here ](https://speakeasyelectroswing.bandcamp.com/track/honey-pie-iv-beatles-electro-swing-remix)

“Oh, they look amazing. Don’t they look simply incredible?”

The mock-ups of the various posters and advertisements for the movie lay scattered across the boardroom table, in all their glorious color—mostly shades of black, grey, and red, the font bold and jagged. **_ONE-WAY TICKET._ A PAST THAT WON’T STAY BURIED. THRILLS AND SUSPENSE!**

John received top billing, of course, as per his contract, but Paul was on equal standing with Ringo, their names added below the main art—a shadowy train station scene, a painting of Cal depicted there and looking very shady indeed, a suitcase held in one hand and a gun in the other. Nick and Victor’s near-disembodied heads floated on either side of this scene, both of their faces carefully turned into shade as well, giving the whole thing an unsettling, mysterious angle. It truly did work well, and Brian was all but beside himself with delight.

“The art department outdid themselves, I think. Marvelous, simply marvelous. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“They got my nose all wrong,” John joked, leaning over the table to point at himself. “But eh, that’s better than what they did to poor Ringo.”

“Shut it, you,” Ringo, right beside him, delivered a fake punch to his arm. “I do look awfully grim though, don’t I?”

John pulled his own face into a mocking sort of frown. “Ah, that’s the truth of it—gets exhausting running a crime ring, doesn’t it?”

Ringo looked grim indeed, but Paul thought he rather did too—how different from his last movie poster, where he was beaming and sweeping a grinning Rosemary Larson off of her feet in her role as Adelaide. It had been some time since he’d thought about her, they’d enjoyed a pleasant working relationship and she had gotten married shortly after production wrapped…he simply never saw her or spoke to her anymore, and she seldom crossed his mind.

Such were the relationships, moving from one project to the next, this job to that job. Would it be like that with John too?

He looked up from the artwork, over at a still-grinning John who was chattering away to Ringo and Brian and some of the assistants, buzzing with excitement as he did when he was truly happy with something—and any concerning thoughts that may have been rising in him then were banished, stifled by the smile of his own that he bit down on, keeping it from fully forming on his lips. But John still happened to glance up and over at him, catch that expression there for half a second…and he did a bit of a double take, which was more than a _little_ gratifying.

“I’ll have these sent around, I want them printed in every publication we can get our hands on,” Brian was instructing an assistant, furiously scribbling away on a notepad. “Take them to Olivia at the front desk, she’ll know what to do with them. And I want to do another interview to follow, we’ll need to get George on the line about that—”

John had moved, wandering over to the other side of the table under the pretense of looking at the teaser posters with different designs on them, and pointed to one prominently featuring Ringo. “What d’you think of that one, Rings? We’ll be scaring the ladies off, if we’re not careful.”

But as he was speaking, ever so deftly, so smoothly, his free hand was moving to slip up Paul’s jacket, to rest on his lower back. It was a somehow steadying yet also risky move, considering just where they were at, and Paul shot him a quick look that John didn’t seem to notice.

“Ah, well, at least Paul looks good,” Ringo pointed out tartly, and John seemed to mull it over even as he kept touching the man in question.

“Well, I’ll give him that much.”

Paul just managed to nudge him with his hip, but it was then that Brian turned smartly around from his conversation with the assistants. John’s hand jumped from Paul so quickly it was like his skin had burned him instead, and though Brian seemed to have just missed it, Paul thought he caught, from the corner of his eye, Ringo looking suddenly perplexed almost behind them.

“That’s done then! We’ll have _Life_ back on the set, they can take photos to run—get people interested. I can scarcely believe we’ve got hardly a month left of photography, can you? Provided we don’t go over our schedule.”

He looked almost sick at the thought, and Paul was quick to reassure him. “There’s no reason to think that we will, Brian. It’s all going rather smoothly, isn’t it?”

“So far…yes. But you know if there’s ever going to be a time where something goes wrong, it’s now at the eleventh hour. Not that I don’t have every confidence in you boys and this production—but we’re reaching critical timing now. There simply won’t be as much leeway when it comes to mishaps and…delays.”

He didn’t look at anyone in particular but his tone was pointed enough, and when they broke for the day, Paul already had the hunch that John was going to make a remark about it—and sure enough, as they were leaving the studio together, he did.

“Can you believe Eppy—that was a targeted remark if ever there was one. Since when have I made any trouble?”

“Maybe I should put a list together of times that you _haven’t,”_ Paul suggested teasingly. “That one would be shorter.”

“Oh, ha!” John butted with his elbow, then gave some quick glances around them—standing outside, the lot was about deserted, the only people visible in the distance nowhere close by, and he made a move to come closer—which Paul deftly stepped back from.

“And speaking of you starting things, John…we’ve got to be more careful.”

“Careful how?” John frowned a little. “Oh, that, god—well, I _am_ being so. Very sneaky. Discretion is my middle name and all.”

“Is it? All right, John ‘Discretion’ Lennon, I’m almost certain that Ringo saw—”

“I think I’ve been summoned—did I hear my name?”

The normally pleasant low voice cut through Paul and John’s conversation, causing the former to nearly jump a little as he turned on the spot. Ringo was just striding out of the studio himself, jacket thrown casually over his shoulder, and surveying the two of them mildly enough—but Paul thought there was rather something too scrutinizing in his expression.

“Hear that? Fame’s gone to your head so much, you hear your name just everywhere,” John quipped automatically, and Ringo gave an appreciative laugh at that—a friendly sound, one that couldn’t help but relax Paul. He was being paranoid, he told himself. There was nothing to worry about.

“I don’t know about the pair of you, but I’m absolutely starving,” Ringo said. “What d’you say we risk running the gauntlet again and finding somewhere to eat in town? I’ve heard The Vine’s quite good too, and you won’t even need to change into your best evening clothes there.”

It would look far too strange to refuse a kind offer. “That sounds perfect,” Paul said simply. “John, how about you find us a car?”

With only a quick look at him, John went to his task, leaving the other two to mill around at the front of the studio building. The sun had set, leaving the headlights on cars glaring as the flashing signs began to come to life too, and Ringo leaned against the brick exterior of the building while they waited for their ride to appear. “It’s funny, isn’t it—about a month ago, if you had told John to go get us a car, he would have told you to go to hell.”

Paul shrugged, adapting a casual pose similar to Ringo’s. “Ah, well, it’s like you said—he must have gotten bored with that whole angle. Expect he’s just in need of some kind of fresh blood.”

“Could be so. ‘Fraid he won’t have it here on set though, unless he starts going after the crew. I heard he had some kind of total breakdown the other day though, completely lost his head. I think he’ll need something of a holiday after this film. Might be the stress, you know.”

“From the movie?”

“Well, from this one and everything else behind it—he did _Night Visions_ recently and nobody liked that one much. There was that bloody awful divorce last year, you must have seen it in the papers…he lost some public opinion that way. But you know John, he’d never admit to any of it, and, er…you’d best not tell him I let you on to any of this either. Don’t think he’d be pleased.”

“No, no…I won’t say a word,” Paul assured him, wondering if that was really true—and feeling a bit troubled by now. He definitely sensed the moodiness from John, the back and forth swings, and deep down, though peeking out every so often in flashes of truth he couldn’t contain, a kind of vulnerability. And hadn’t John told him, just the other week outside the movie theater…that he’d cut out parts of himself. That this is what this life required.

The car ride out to dinner was unusually quiet. Paul and John didn’t sit near each other on the trip there, but when they were shown to another table of the dark wood-paneled restaurant in a more private, secluded section, they automatically moved to sit next to each other. If Ringo was surprised, he didn’t show it, and making a fuss out of it and switching seats would have looked even stranger—so there they remained, their knees brushing under the table.

It wasn’t long after their dinner had been ordered that a small pack of young women from a nearby table, who had been whispering and giggling to each other with much excitement for some time now, finally got the nerve to approach them. Their ringleader, a girl with ginger curls and daring red lipstick, was the first to speak, daring to hold out a free scrap of paper she must have found in her purse.

“Paul? Paul McCartney? Oh, I just loved your last movie, it would be such an honor if you could—I mean, could you please—”

“Absolutely,” Paul said, jovially enough, and leaned across the table for an autograph—the rest of the lot were emboldened by their friend’s success and soon jostled forward for their own turn, eagerly firing questions away at him. He wasn’t wholly unaccustomed to it, the girls were soon chatting up Ringo as well, and it all seemed to be going perfectly well…until he felt John’s hand soon slip onto his knee, and then his thigh, exceedingly deliberately.

He didn’t quite gasp aloud, but still threw John a look—he nudged him with his knee under the table, then moved a hand to shift John’s away, but something about the intimate contact gave him pause. Ringo was entertaining most of the girls with some funny story, and so Paul let his fingers twine with John’s, then let go, deliberately raking across one of his own thighs and edging dangerously close to his crotch.

John made a small but audible sound, but Paul determinedly didn’t look at him and instead up to the redheaded (it almost reminded him of someone else) young lady. “If you liked the last film, I think you’ll be pleased with the new one we’re making—it’s a bit different, though.”

“I’ve been reading about it in all the magazines,” She responded breathlessly, and she wasn’t the only one finding it hard to focus—John was returning the gesture, fingers deftly stealing over to the waistband of Paul’s trousers and to his belt buckle, like he meant to undo it right then and there.

Paul reached for a glass of water in an attempt to take a nonchalant sip, but it didn’t go very well—not when he all but spluttered it out in the next moment as John gave a gentle but deliberate squeeze. He must have sucked in his breath a little too hard, cheeks suddenly flushed, as Ringo looked almost concernedly over at him.

“You all right there, Paul?”

“Yeah, I’m…just a little light-headed, all of a sudden. What’s in this stuff?” He gestured loosely to the bottle of champagne on their table they had ordered earlier, and Ringo gave a small sniff.

“It’s not the most top tier, I’ll admit—shouldn’t be _that_ bad, though.”

“It’s stuffy in here,” One of the girls consoled him, then nudged one of her friends, her expression full of intent. _We should probably go._

John’s hand was moving so purposefully, so skillfully, it didn’t take long of that stroking for Paul to really be absurdly hard, and knocking John’s hand away now might look even worse—and what was more, the bigger part of him really didn’t want to, wanted to let his eyes flutter close, and more urgently, free himself of the confines holding him in his pants, feel skin on bare skin—

 “We’ll look out for the picture at the movies then,” The redhead said brightly. “Thank you so much!”

Paul could manage a nod and his best attempt at a smile, it probably looked like he was grimacing more than anything else, and when the girls had seen themselves off, he made a show of getting abruptly to his feet, John’s hand falling away at the action. Ringo’s eyebrows flew up at the sudden gesture, and Paul gave a shrug.

“Just need to pop into the WC, is all. Be back in a tick.”

He had to squeeze past John in order to move from the table, and he let himself go through with it then—the intentional brushing of his fingers across his shoulder was packed with a kind of meaning he hoped John understood. He had a feeling that for as in-tune with each other as they really were sometimes, he would get the message.

Paul didn’t go anywhere but the coat closet they had all seen earlier—all of their jackets were in here, after all. It had been easy enough giving the attendant the slip, and he hoped John had the same kind of luck…after all of _that,_ he could hardly expect to just sit there at dinner and act as if everything was normal with him.

Perhaps ten agonizing minutes later, according to Paul’s wristwatch, the door opened up again, and John came sliding inside. He was just locking it behind him, managing to begin to joke, “That chap’s about half-asleep out there, isn’t he, must be quite boring—” before Paul was striding forward in only a few quick steps, closing the distance between them but pulling John towards him.

It was messy, how they met, almost violent with a clashing of noses and lips and teeth—John accepted the fierce kisses, he gave back as good as he got, before he finally tore himself free. “Good god, McCartney, what—”

“As if you don’t know,” Paul fired back, breathing already heavier as he nipped at the skin of his neck, as his own fumbling hands went for John’s belt buckle.

“S’pose I’ve got something to blame for that,” John admitted with a roguish grin, but surprisingly, he reached down to still Paul’s hands, locking them in place for a moment.

_“John—”_

“Oh, shush up—we’ve only got so much time in here, after all. I want to finish what I started.”

Paul’s breath hitched, hips pressed insistently into John’s then, their bodies grinding together. He didn’t beg for anything, he couldn’t, but a part of him very much felt like doing so now. “Yes, yes, oh yes—”

They tangled against each other, John pressing Paul against the wall where some of the coats in their hangers offered some semblance of hiding them from view—at least for now. He kissed Paul again, sloppily, tongue all but licking into his mouth, before he let his hands trail down his chest, and the rest of his own body dropped with it until he had hit his knees, face very level with where precisely Paul needed him to go.

The blood was pounding in Paul’s ears but more pressing to the matter at hand, also very much rushing _out_ of his head and further down, and the sight of John on his knees in front of him was too much for him to turn away. Threading his fingers through his hair was all the permission John needed before he was slowly drawing Paul’s cock from his pants, the relieved groan he made at the sensation enough to make him smile almost lazily, affectionately.

“That’s better, innit?” He was stroking him again, his hand cool and dry on hot, hard skin, and Paul was already far too wound up to keep this game up for much longer. All thoughts of keeping any dignity or pride or whatever it was suddenly seemed outstandingly unimportant, compared to what was in front of him now, and ragged words left him in a puff of breath.

“John, please, you’ve already…please don’t make me—”

“I won’t,” John told him, his own voice husky, before his tongue ran up the length of him and then his warm, wet mouth closed around him, and Paul had to clamp one hand up to his own mouth to try and stifle the groans that were already about to leave him—just biting down on his lip wasn’t good enough.

If anyone happened to come in, if they forced the door open, it would be all over here and now—was the sake of his career, his reputation, really worth five stolen minutes or so in a coat closet? At the time, with lightning bolts of ecstasy firing from the base of him and up his spine, with his fingers buried in John’s surprisingly wavy and soft hair, and with his lover’s own appreciative, stifled moans from just below him—the answer couldn’t seem to be anything but a resounding yes.

“Yes, _yes,_ god, Johnny, so good—” He was all but babbling, words spilling from behind his hand, and when John’s hand moved to squeeze his balls through the bunched-up material of his trousers, clearly enthused by the praise, Paul had to bite down into the palm of his hand to keep from keening aloud, though his bucking hips certainly communicated his thoughts on it.

When he finally came, it was intense but quick, his whole mind utterly wiped of any thought and feeling but one long moment of pure bliss, a white-hot curtain of delight and relief, and John was swallowing him down like someone who had certainly done this before. Breathing heavily, Paul had to slump against the wall, and opened his screwed-shut eyes just in time to see John wipe his mouth with the back of his sleeve, sitting back on his heels with a flushed face but deeply satisfied expression.

He must have seen how Paul was shaking a little though, because in the next moment, he’d staggered up to his feet, arms looping around him while fingers rifled through his hair. “Hey, you’re all right, now,” John said, voice brimming with something like mirth—or affection, most of all. “Didn’t mean to completely knock you out here, but I’m flattered—”

“Oh, stop it,” Paul managed to give him a little nudge, as John’s lips brushed the top of his head—it was terribly intimate, surprisingly sweet, and he almost let his eyes shut again as if about to drop off to sleep…but the harsh light gleaming up above them made it perfectly plain where they really were. “John, I…” His hands reached for him again, thinking he ought to at least return the gesture, that John couldn’t be unaffected by all this either, but again, he stopped him from going any further.

“I don’t think we’ve got any time left. Let’s…save it for later?” There was an undisguised glimmer of hope in his voice, a promise of a future, and Paul couldn’t help but smile and nod against his neck.

“Later.”

They both had to get themselves reasonably put together again, Paul taking extra time to finger-comb his hair until John made an impatient clicking noise with his tongue. Considering what had just been transpiring, by the end of it, Paul thought he looked decent, and he squeezed John’s hand again before they left separately, giving the closet the slip and heading back into the restaurant.

“There you two are!” Ringo remarked when they rejoined him at the table. “I was beginning to wonder, think I ought to have called a constable—”

“Fancied a smoke break, is all,” Paul said blithely, before he gestured back to the bottle on the table. “Feel like getting anything else to drink?”

He could still feel it, all the while—John’s hand brushing against his own under the table, or their feet companionably nudging against each other’s. But what he also didn’t miss was Ringo’s somewhat bemused, though lingering, glance over at the two of them

***

Of course, as all their feelings towards each other had done before this, their relationship ran into their work. It was almost inevitable that it would be translated, in some small way, over to the screen as well. The interactions on set were one thing—though it was irresistible, to look over to meet John’s gaze exchange from across the sound stage and _not_ exchange a smile, to not return that knowing, deeply charged grin or expression. They had a secret, and a side of Paul felt like he had wings—the other side of him agonized.

It was especially interesting because in _One-Way Ticket,_ after the train derailment and their trip through the desert, Cal and Nick had to rent a car in order to make the final leg of their trip, and tensions were running wildly high. They snapped at each other, they squabbled while in the car, there was another altercation when they stopped for gas—it was building towards the movie’s climax, but it might have been better-suited to the two actors nearly a month ago when they were at each other’s throats.

It was harder now to keep it going, knowing that likely later that same day, John would be twined around him and Paul would be running his tongue down the length of his body, but he still thought it went well, all things considered. When they weren’t together for a scene, they had agreed to interact with each other one on one as little as possible on the set, the better to keep people from whispering and minds from wandering. It was simply easier that way, after all, the crew and their fellow actors were still more accustomed to their hostile behavior than anything else. When they did speak, it was very cordial and fake-sounding, but Brian seemed to have fallen for it.

John had wandered away after a scene to go harass someone else, leaving the director free to speak to Paul. “I must say…I’m happy with how relations seem to have improved between you and John. I know he isn’t easy to get along with, and it was certainly…difficult at the beginning. But I think you’ve made some real progress.”

Paul knew just what ‘real progress’ looked like behind closed doors, but he had to smile. “I think it was just…something more of a misunderstanding in the beginning. We were all up in arms because we didn’t know each other. I think working together and…talking some things out has helped. All for the good of the picture, y’know.”

“That’s the spirit. I commend you for it.”

George was hovering around nearby, making notes on a clapperboard, and he looked up with a crooked grin. “And don’t worry—you’ve only got about a month of Lennon’s shit to put up with now. I think you can make it that much more.”

“Well…I’ve gotten this far,” Paul said, almost bracingly, as if it had been a battle—and well, towards the beginning, it had been. Sometimes he thought that if he blinked twice, the whole thing might disappear, and he’d wake up in a hotel bed before he got the call from Lee Eastman about the movie role.

But it was very much real. And somehow, they had managed to settle into a sort of routine when they were off the set as well, always trying to be very conscious of just how they did things—they never saw each other every single night, but the ones that _were_ spent together had a special kind of meaning to them then.

And a different kind of intimacy came with it too. It wasn’t all fumbling hands in closets or tumbling into beds, but time together that spoke of something a little more…domestic. In any case, Paul never would have thought he’d be having dinner with John, playing records or listening to the radio, poring over scripts while John flipped through a book in the evening. It was something else entirely.

Tonight, he was lying stretched out on the sofa in John’s trailer, stocking feet propped up on the arm of it as he perused a film magazine. John was fixing them drinks just behind him, and Paul spoke up when he saw something of interest. “Oh, listen to this…it says here that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are doing another picture together.”

“Another one?” John asked. “Wasn’t the first one bad enough?”

Paul pretended to be offended at that. “I, for one, happened to _like_ it.”

“Well, _you_ would…all that singing and dancing—[that part on the damn plane!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRXXnrooXs)

But there was a smile in his voice, and Paul couldn’t help but laugh a little too as he thought of it. “Oh god, all right…the plane scene _was_ a bit much. But _Flying Down to Rio_ was wonderful.”

“Fred liked doing it,” John remarked, coming over with two glasses full of amber liquid—he nudged at Paul’s legs, and he obligingly moved them up to allow him to sit on the other end of the sofa. Once he was settled in, Paul’s legs moved back to nearly lock him into place as he accepted his drink from him.

“You’ve met Fred Astaire?”

“Briefly. Skinny fellow. Surprised that you haven’t, all things considered.”

“Haven’t gotten around to it yet,” Paul said, continuing to read the rest of the article. “D’you think they’re going to keep it up then? Keep making movies as a double act?”

“Well, why not? Maybe it works for some people, but I don’t see how they wouldn’t get sick of each other,” John said sardonically, taking a sip of his drink and tilting his head back. Paul studied him for a moment longer, briefly, something of a thought flickering across his mind before he shied away from it and lost it.

“Maybe some people actually like working together,” He teased him, and John leaned forward enough to grab him with one hand, to move in for a kiss.

It was only perhaps an hour later that he checked the clock and realized what time it was. “Oh, holy cats—I promised Jane I’d give her a ring tonight. She’s on the last leg of the tour, she’s probably dead exhausted.”

John didn’t look wholly pleased at that, just leaning back and giving a casual shrug of hardly one shoulder. “So she can wait a little longer to hear from you then, can’t she?”

“John.” Paul fixed him with a look. “Please, you know she…she still means something to me.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” John muttered under his breath, but by that time, Paul had already walked out of the trailer, letting the door bang shut behind him. John was hardly one to judge given his own dubious reputation (adultery had been on the long list of complaints his ex-wife had nailed him to the wall for in the divorce) and patchy history, but as Paul made his way into his own trailer again to make the call, he thought he knew the real crux of it—John was simply jealous. He had a funny way of demanding your attention on and off the set.

But what was more, how was he supposed to carry on with Jane and act like everything was still normal? He hadn’t physically seen her in months now and he wouldn’t still for a while yet, but he wasn’t enough of a cad (perhaps) to not be able to see that what he was doing with decidedly wrong. And truth be told, he’d spent the night with someone else before, but the key here seemed to be that it had only ever been one night of a purely physical nature—whatever this was with John, he already knew it was something quite different.

Paul was all but holding his breath when he finally made the call to Jane, twisting the chord around his finger as the phone rang. When she picked up, she sounded exhausted, but pleased enough to hear from him. “Oh, Paul…you wouldn’t believe the sort of day I’ve had!”

She launched into an account of the performance, which had evidently gone quite well, but some bigwig producers they were supposed to be impressing in the audience were less than pleased with it. As a result, the director and the other managers had torn into everyone backstage, and to cap matters off—

“And the train was delayed this morning too. Honestly, everyone was in such a foul mood, it’s a wonder we made it on stage tonight. Only a couple more weeks of this rubbish.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Jane…you know you like the production otherwise,” Paul reminded her.

“I do, but…well, you can understand it, can’t you? You must be getting quite fed up with your own work by now. At least I get a fresh crowd every night, some new people—I can’t imagine doing the same thing over and over again to cameras only. But as you like it, well…”

“Of course I do,” Paul said, hoping he didn’t sound remarkably testy at that. “I sometimes…I s’pose I sometimes miss the theatre. The audience every night. But we had this conversation before, you know, when I first went to audition…”

“I know. Of course I know. They’re starting to say the stage is old hat by this point too…maybe I ought to make the same kind of leap you did? Do you think Hollywood has another spot to fill?”

Her tone was light and teasing, but something about it made Paul’s chest constrict a bit—the thought of her out here in this town, maybe? Or maybe just the notion of her being somewhere he had already filled up with memories of John. Jane seemed like part of another world entirely, something to be kept separate.

“I think they’d love you here,” He managed to say quietly.

“Well…I’ll have to come scout the place out when I come to see you in a few weeks. Filming’s almost done, isn’t it?”

“It…yeah, it is.”

“Then I’ll be marking the days on my calendar. I love you, Paul.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.” It didn’t feel completely like a lie, and gently admonishing her to get some sleep (she was, after all, several hours ahead of him in time) was perfectly natural. It all seemed to hurt a little more as with heavy feet, he still returned to John’s trailer.

John was listening to something on the radio when Paul came in, but a smile flickered across his face then. “Aha, here’s our Romeo now…how’s Juliet?”

Jane had actually played a wonderful Juliet in a production once, but it seemed stupid to say that—still, Paul couldn’t help but think of it. It almost made him smirk. “Juliet is exhausted. She has a long run of shows behind her.”

He squeezed next to John on the couch, who soon looped an arm around him, holding him close. He let him do it, his body warming to the physical touch, letting their fingers twine in the next moment too. “How much longer is the tour going on for?” John asked nonchalantly, and Paul gave him a look.

“You don’t honestly care, John—”

“Of course I do. It’s going to impact my future one way or another, isn’t it?”

Paul hesitated for a moment, then told the truth. “She finishes up in a couple weeks. She’ll have some time off then, but after that…the company may want her for another production.”

“Mm. I can live with that,” John murmured, all but nuzzling into Paul’s neck, and he tried to remain focused despite the tickling-like sensation on him.

“John, really…” This was going to undo him. In the end, it’d always be John.

But still, he could have left. It was hardly like he was lacking the ability to somehow do that. Yet it felt too easy, too natural, to stay here with John, to curl up on the sofa and exchange slow, lazy kisses—they only broke apart when it was time to finally eat something, and John went to change the radio station. While he was at it, Paul sat forward, eyes landing on the film industry magazine he’d been flicking through earlier and electing to pick it up once again.

“Well, there you go…this says that Carey Larson bought himself a ranch in Colorado. Nothing to do but ride horses all day long out there.”

“Sounds awfully boring,” John remarked, clattering around in the tiny kitchen. Paul glanced down at the pictures of the place, at the elegant ranch house and nothing but blue sky, green fields, and distant mountains looming in the background. It looked like something different, something beautiful, and he had to say as much.

“I think it looks nice, actually. I wouldn’t mind owning a horse or two.”

“Honestly? Ever had one before?”

“No,” Paul admitted. “But I’ve ridden one once. Along the beach in the surf. I liked it, you know.”

“Well,” John said, coming back with the beginnings of dinner for them. “If the damn horses mean so much to you, you can probably find some to ride along the beach nearby. I might even be persuaded to come and join you.”

“With an attitude like that, I’m not even bothering,” Paul teased.

“We could!” John insisted around a laugh. “Any other dreams you’ve got in mind to fulfill someday?”

“Oh, I don’t know…I’d like to go to Paris once, I think. Never been. And I’d like to have my dad out here once to visit, but I think this place would about overwhelm him. Not really old Jim’s speed, if you know what I mean.”

“Instead of going back to see him?”

“Oh, no…that as well, I s’pose. I miss home sometimes, a little. D’you ever miss where you’re from?”

Something in John’s expression changed a little at that, became a bit stonier. “No. Not ever.”

Paul reached a hand out, trailing it down John’s arm that was closest to him. “Never? Well…growing up in Iowa, maybe that makes sense?”

He was teasing him a little, but John seemed to take it more to heart as he was silent for a minute—then gave a small sigh. “Well, some of what’s been printed before isn’t exactly true…”

“Oh, so you’re not really from there? God, I can hardly think of any others, what’s the names of those states—Illinois, maybe?”

“No, no,” John rolled his eyes, nudging him a little. “I’m from Iowa, sorry to say. But I didn’t, uh…I didn’t grow up dirt-poor there, as I’ve always said. It was a very boring, middle-class sort of life, if you really must know, but my first agent didn’t think that made for such a good story. The papers don’t eat that sort of thing up. And, uh…one thing led to another, and now I’m sort of stuck with it.”

There was a tiny beat—and then, inexplicably, Paul found himself stifling a sharp snort of surprised laughter. “Oh, honestly! John! So the whole sob story past is really just a story?”

“I…yes. And not a very good one, I’m afraid.” John was starting to laugh a little now too, almost as if in relief.

“Well, it’s hardly anything made-up in my case,” Paul reminded him simply. “Not that we couldn’t afford the electric bill or anything like that, we never went hungry, but, er…middle-class would have been too much. Not all of us can use it like a marketing gimmick.”

He said it mildly enough—of course, there were better things in the world worth getting upset over than something so trivial. But something about using the ‘novelty’ of poverty to add a splash of flavor to one’s history left a bit of a bad taste in his mouth, considering not only his own life, but the long lines outside the soup kitchens in the cities just now, the people who didn’t have the luxury of pretending otherwise.

John must have sensed the change in his tone, the shift there, and he moved a hand to idly toy with a strand of Paul’s hair. “Oh, don’t be like that…it’s just one little thing. It doesn’t hurt anybody, does it?”

“All I can say is that it’s a good thing we’re in a career field where honesty doesn’t have to be highly prized.”

To his slight irritation, John chuckled at that. “I guess you’re right.”

Paul held his tongue for a moment, the urge to say more all but bursting from it, before he opted to change the subject for now. “But first up…despite what you say about it, I’d like to buy a place here. It only makes sense, after all.”

There was a slight but loaded pause at that, so quiet except for the murmur of the radio in the back that Paul could hear as John drew a slight breath.

“Come to New York with me,” He suddenly blurted out, and Paul stared at him for a moment.

_“Sorry?”_

“Forget this town, New York is one of the only places worth being…come back with me when the filming’s done. Before the premiere. I’ve got a penthouse, and it would—I mean. I think you’d like it, is all.”

His voice had become increasingly faster, by the end of it, John was all but squirming but trying to act nonchalant—something in that made Paul’s heart ache a little. He reached out and lightly touched his lips, feeling the hesitant, flickering smile that turned up John’s mouth at the mention of something so vulnerable.

“John…you know what we agreed on. After filming’s done—”

“I know,” John cut him off. “Just…maybe think about it then, all right? You would like it there. _I’d_ like you there.”

Of course he would. Paul stayed with him for a while longer after that, nothing physical going on, but they remained pressed close together as hands reached out to touch and caress without thinking as they listened to a comedy show on the radio, as John’s soft chortle at some of it filled his ears. He wanted him to come back with him to New York…well, Paul was sure he had a penthouse or the like there, and an idle part of his mind wondered just what it looked like. It was probably even more of a mess, likely filled even more with books, and thought was surprisingly intimate. Here, they were away from their permanent residences and the world outside, to be invited back into the space—it seemed to speak of something larger.

It was before midnight by the time Paul returned back to his own trailer (it was simply easier to do than waking up in the same place and enduring all of that struggle once more), and he managed to get some rest in him—which was just as well, because the next day, he’d be having a gun pointed at him on set.

“You’d better tell the damn truth, and I want to hear _all_ of it. Is that understood?”

Nick turned around slowly, the gun pointed right in his face—and gave something of a shaky laugh. “Cal, honestly, what is this about?”

“You know full well what it’s about. How have you managed to stay one step ahead of Prince this whole time unless you’re in cahoots with him? That’s what I’d like to know!”

“Cal, where is this coming from? I swear—”

The sound of another gunshot rang out—but not fired by either one of them.

From behind the back of the depot by the train station, where their walk from the desert had taken them, a figure emerged from the shadows and the billowing steam from a departing locomotive. Victor Prince appeared then, flanked by two of his cronies, the smoke from his cigarette wafting into the air to disappear into the billowing cloud around them. Of course they didn’t hear it now, but in the finished version of this scene, an ominous swell of brass music would rise to greet the occasion.

“So the two of you finally decided to make an appearance, then? I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever turn up.”

“You ought to know something about it!” Cal turned instantly on the spot, the pistol now pointed in Prince’s direction instead. “It was you what caused that derailment and all, wasn’t it?”

A flicker of surprise on Prince’s face in the shadows. “You thought that…no, that wasn’t me! Why would I try and delay the arrival that I want, the money that I’m after? I don’t know who or what blew the tracks up, and I don’t give a damn until I get what I came here for.”

“It wasn’t _you—”_

But Cal was knocked out before he could complete the thought, a blow delivered from behind that sent him sprawling to the ground, the screen fading to black as he fell unconscious. By the time he awoke, he’d be tied to a chair in a dark cabin, and Nick would be pacing the room with his discarded gun in his hands.

“So along then…” Cal managed to snarl out, after struggling uselessly against his confines for a few moments, the words leaving him in short, angry bursts. “All along, you were working for Prince and his gang!”

“That’s not fair—I wasn’t working _for_ Prince. Around him, maybe. I never wanted him to go to you, or you to him.”

Cal studied him for a moment longer, fully aware of just who had the upper hand in the situation. “So whose side are you on here?”

“No one’s but my own. That’s all I’ve been saying all along.”

Cal was quiet for a moment, his hands fumbling uselessly at the ropes confining them, but his mind working overtime. “So what are you going to do to me now? Where’s Prince and all the money?”

“I think you ought to be less concerned with that and a little more with me right now, don’t you? Now start talking, Cal, because I want answers—and I better hear some good ones. Where were you the night that we met, before you walked into that bar? What exactly were you doing?”

Cal stilled a little at that, voice grown quieter. “I was at home, you know that. That’s when I got the first message from Prince.”

“You’re a good liar, you know…but not that good. We can sit here all day if need be, I’ve got nothing but time.”

He laughed at that, a short, derisive chuckle. “You— _we_ —don’t even have that much. If you’re not working for Prince, then he’ll be after you too. You might as well just be honest with me, Nick, if I can even count on that much from you.”

“You want honesty from me in a time like this? Let’s not forgetting who’s holding all the cards here. Now…let's hear it."

And on it went, an exhausting, harrowing scene that they had to run over and over again, that Brian kept adjusting the light and the sound and nearly everything for—it was a critical scene, one in which Nick’s role was fully revealed after so long spent in the shadows. Paul, of course, had to remain in character, which was sometimes hard to do when John would pull quick faces at him in between takes…but he wasn’t as inclined as before to deliberately flub a line, or make fusses about any changes in the script. It seemed that even now, as Brian had told them earlier, when it was really down to the line even John could shape up.

By the time they finally called it a day on the set, they’d been there for well over twelve hours. Even Paul was feeling the exhaustion seeping into his bones, so much so that he made a point of establishing eye contact with John, tapping briefly on his watch then to indicate that as soon as possible, they needed to meet up. John was speaking with another production assistant, but Paul saw the brief wink he managed to tip his way at the gesture.

Paul waited for a short while just behind the sound stage, listening as the crew packed up and lights began to turn off for the day. It wasn’t long before shuffling footsteps alerted him to another presence, and John was joining him back there, swiftly ducking behind the screen to plant a long kiss to his lips.

“God, I’m absolutely beat. What d’you say we go back and just pass out?”

“I think that sounds like a great idea. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Oh…not coming back then, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think so, John, I’m just too exhausted. Wouldn’t be a lot of fun tonight anyway, I’d just fall asleep on you,” Paul teased, but John didn’t seem very discouraged.

“Ah, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Though has anyone ever told you that you snore?”

“Me, snore?” Paul had to act offended at that. “Why, I—”

“Don’t try and argue it, it’s not like you’re awake to hear yourself at it or no,” John chuckled. “And sometimes I think your eyes stay popped wide open when you’re really asleep? It’s unnatural, that it is.”

“Oh, stop it,” Paul laughed, but the smile soon faded a little. “…do I really?”

“You do. Creepy.”

“I won’t believe it until I see it for myself.”

“Trust me here,” John told him, bringing his hands up to cup his face. “But I’ll be happy to take a reel of photographs if you want. That’d make for some invigorating bonus footage for the film.”

“Please—”

But Paul was laughing, momentarily forgetting the weariness in his bones as it was replaced with something lighter, letting John draw him in for a kiss. There was one, then two, but soon he wasn’t bothering to keep count anymore—at least, not until from nearby there came the distinct clicking sound of approaching footsteps, and a voice was cutting through it all.

“Is somebody back— _oh._ Oh, god, I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—”

John and Paul had jolted apart at the sound of someone coming, but there could be no way of knowing if they had managed to do so in time or not—but quickly whipping around to see the stunned, mortified expression on George’s face seemed to be indication enough that he had seen _something._ Heat flared to his face as somehow the blood in his veins ran cold at the same time, and Paul quickly averted his gaze as John, unsurprisingly, met the newcomer head-on.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing back here?”

“I was just—only it’s time to shut the set down for the night, it’s—”  George was all but squirming, by contrast, his face growing paler when put on the spot, making himself look rather busy with the assorted clipboards and papers still in his hand.

“Well, you can see yourself out now,” John said impatiently, starting to wave him off—only to pause for a moment. “You didn’t…there was nothing you saw here, was there?”

George shook his head quickly, eyes darting back and forth between the two of them and then upwards as if looking for help from above. “No, no, of course not. Nothing.”

“You’re sure about that? I need you to make it very plain that you fucking understand that.”

He sounded almost on the verge of something physical, plainly threatening, Paul had half a mind to tell him not to thump the kid too badly—but George had looked back around with the expression of someone who wasn’t unaccustomed to dodging such things, who was hardly afraid but who knew better than to push his luck around such people.

“Yes, I understand. You’d better clear off the set now though. I’m not the only person still around here.”

This was perfectly sound advice, and Paul gave a tug on John’s arm. “C’mon, John, just do what he says—he’s right, y’know.”

He still couldn’t quite meet George’s incredulous eyes, but luckily, John didn’t seem to want to keep sparring with hi any longer. He finally nodded jerkily, tearing his eyes away from the production assistant, and the both of them exited the sound stage at a good clip. Paul finally dared a quick glance over his shoulder, and was just in time to witness George reappear from behind the screen itself, rubbing at his temples like his head hurt.

“What the fuck was that about?” Paul hissed to John once they had exited the studio and were back out into the light of twilight, and John rounded on him instead.

“What was _what_ about?”

“Don’t play stupid—you know damn well what I mean. What were you going to do, give the kid a black eye?”

“What, do you think I should have?”

“No! Listen, you don’t think he saw anything—do you?”

“There’s no way to be sure.”

His pulse was pounding away, echoing loudly in his mind, and he fought to find words for a moment. “But he’s not going to _say_ anything, is he?”

“I don’t know! How can I know that? But if he does…if he _does—_ that isn’t to say anyone would believe him. Over mine or his, you know whose word anyone would believe.”

As lofty, entitled a statement as it was, there was a harsh grain of truth in there that couldn’t be ignored—and for right now, Paul was grateful for it. “That’s fine then, that’s…fine. But if he takes it to Brian, I suppose we’d better have either a good story to fend him off with or else those contracts of ours back in hand so he can tear them up.”

At that, John gave an almighty snort, digging around for a cigarette and a lighter. In the gathering dark, the glow from the flame seemed especially bright, and Paul was keenly aware there were still lights from the building pointed at them, that they were in a public space—if there was a right time and place to be having this conversation, it wasn’t here. But before he could speak up and say as such, John was plowing ahead already.

“Brian? Not likely. Remember what I told you about him all that time ago? He’s not going to be mad even if it _does_ get out.”

“So maybe not Brian then—but there are others, John, for Christ’s sake. You’ve said it over and over again, news gets around here, one word in the wrong ear and we’re all over the papers the next morning.”

“No, we’re not. No one’s got any proof, you’re going loony for no reason at all—and listen, I’ve got friends at some of the papers, don’t you think that for what I amuse myself with I’d need to make sure I—”

He cut himself off of that, taking a long drag of his cigarette, but the damage had been done already. Paul folded his arms tightly across his chest, hardly unruffled by any of this. “Oh, well, that’s good to know then—I’m glad you’d be able to save your own skin if it came down to it. But I don’t have the same kind of connections, or the same kind of clout, and if you think—”

John reached out with his free hand, roughly cupping Paul’s chin in it and keeping him from speaking for a moment. “As if I’d just, what, leave you out to dry on your own? Forget it, McCartney. Nothing’s happening to either of us.”

Paul wanted to believe him so terribly bad, from all he had seen of George there wasn’t much of that turn-tail and run to report any wrongdoings to teacher sort of mentality, but there was also simply no way to be sure—and the uncertainty was what nagged at him, what sunk it’s teeth into him.

“It’s just…god, I’m finally there, John. Or almost there. Here, wherever. And after so long chasing and working and _clawing_ for it, I can’t let one stupid mistake make the whole thing come—”

But he had said the wrong thing—John jerked back, recoiled, his hand dropping like a stone. “A mistake? Is that all this is to you, then?”

“No, no, of course not—but listen—”

He was the one reaching out now, but John simply wasn’t accepting it, moving back away from his hand until his back pressed against a nearby brick wall. “Oh, no, I know what it is—what were those exact words you use again? An on-set fling? A quick screw while the cameras aren’t rolling and then, thank you very much ladies and gents, it’s back to the little missus and domestic life, eh?”

John was trying to get a rise out of him, of course, that was simply the way he operated—but Paul’s mental hackles couldn’t help but rise all the same, despite knowing this was what his partner here wanted. “Don’t go and say this now. I’ve been nothing but honest about it, John, you know it could never be something…something that lasts. We were always plain about that.”

“Yeah, I…I’ve always known that. But a part of me just…” But John let his voice trail off, either unwilling or unable to finish the thought, and Paul’s heart lurched as he thought of his earlier request to come to New York with him, that hopeful invitation for something longer, something…permanent. Perhaps.

“I know.” It was the best Paul could say to him, perhaps a measure of reassurance, but one he knew John wouldn’t exactly bite at. “I know, but it can’t…ever be like that. There’s too much on the line for us.”

A slight pause as the night air seemed to billow around them, and then John signed, flicking part of his cigarette away. “Of course. More fool me, then. Well, if you’re so concerned about how things are going to look, and if we’ve ran into some trouble now, maybe we’d better just put an end to it. Before we risk anything else and all.”

He couldn’t mean it, not really, it was only because he was upset and lashing out—at least, Paul tried to tell himself that, but it was impossible not to feel a chill of fear down his back like someone had dropped a chunk of ice down his shirt. This wasn’t what he had wanted at _all,_ far from it, no matter what George had seen or might be prepared to tell…he wasn’t willing to give John up yet. Not yet.

But his hesitation, his complete bafflement at John’s suggestion, seemed to paint a very different picture for the man in question.

“How can you not see that I want this too? Filming doesn’t wrap for another couple weeks or so, you think I want to go around the set and act like we’re strangers again?”

John looked at him for a moment longer, something nearly tortured in his expression. “No, I guess I don’t. But maybe you were right at first, all along, and that would have been the easier way to do things.”

Paul leaned against the wall next to him, as if needing the support. He extended a hand and John got the message, passing him a cigarette of his own wordlessly. For a few minutes, all was relatively silent between them as they listened to the sound of sets being moved around nearby and traffic in the distance. There tiny corner of the world seemed very small indeed all of a sudden, one locked-away part of something much bigger that neither of them could contend with—but then John was nudging Paul’s hip with his own, subtly shifting the distance between them and closing it again.

“Ah, you know what, McCartney—that’s what I liked about you right from the beginning. You can cut the bullshit with me. It’s attractive now, isn’t it?”

Paul gave something of a shaky laugh, passing his hand over his face. “If you say so, Johnny. But no…no more of this, can we agree on that? We’ve got to act like we barely know each other on set again, or anywhere around it. It’s the only way.”

John looked like he had half a mind to contest the point, but then he gave a nod. “…you’re right. Why d’you have to be right all the damn time? Makes the rest of us look inferior.”

“I guess somebody has to be,” Paul said with a wry smile, and even though he leaned more on John in the next moment, the body language between them ringing loud and clear, it still felt like an impassible rift had opened up between them all the same, one that might be small for now, but couldn’t endure weeks of being chipped away at.

In any case, so far as either of them knew, George never said a word to anyone about what he might or might not have seen that day. The very next day on set, he made fleeting eye contact with Paul only once that suggested something else might be on his mind—before he turned and gave instructions to another assistant on set, and deftly moved back into doing his job.

Brian never mentioned anything to either of them as well—but it seemed he was deeply preoccupied anyway, looking more and more haggard and less like his usual well-groomed and put-together self as the days flew past and their production schedule grew tighter and tighter. They couldn’t afford, money-wise or any other way, to run over schedule here. All of this was to say that days on set passed by in a winding blur to Paul, there was much work to be done and lines to go over, all building up to the finale of the film—so he needn’t have worried about John much, not when they were both overtaxed in such a way.

But they continued to see each other. Even if it was just collapsing into someone’s bed at night and sleeping next to each other, it was better than nothing. Even just to hear the sound of his steady breathing or whistling snores (John could insult him all he wanted, he was really no better when it came to that), it meant something. It was all so fleeting, every last stolen moment meant something.

And on a night where they didn’t have to be on set until later the next day, John told him to get back to his trailer and put on “his best dancing clothes.”

Paul quirked an eyebrow at that. “Do _what?”_

“Just don’t wear your Sunday best, all right? Make sure you’ve got good clothes you can dance in. And meet me at nine tonight.”

He complied with the request, putting on some of the better clothes he had packed along with him before going to meet John and the car outside. There was a partition between themselves and the driver, and with no one else in the back with them, their hands might have moved to places they wouldn’t dare to anywhere but in the cover of darkness, street lights flashing by occasionally throwing beams across them that would have been the only witnesses.

They finally got out of the car at what appeared to be a strip of theaters and clubs, and Paul looked around as John paid the driver. “So where are we, exactly…?”

“Oh, it’s not here, really—we’ve got to go a bit, uh, underground.”

“Oh…I think I know what this is about.”

And he did, Paul was hardly a stranger to such a thing himself though he’d only dared to visit such a place once in a blue moon before—but the whole scope of Los Angeles, where he’d also filmed his last project, was no stranger to what they called “pansy clubs.” Where under the shelter of nighttime and infused with (at the time, Prohibition-illegal) booze and swing music, other men like them could come alive, find a safe harbor.

It looked like the stairs leading down to a basement below another theater at first, but John gave a knock at the door, and after a few moments, it swung open. The man waiting for them there had a thick beard and was rather on the large side, he almost seemed to take up all the room in the tiny hallway, but his eyes were kind as he looked John up and down.

“Good to see you again, John. It’s been a little while, I thought you’d about forgotten about us.”

“Who, me? Never,” John responded with a roguish grin, but the man’s eyes were shifting to sweep over Paul.

“And hello, who do we have here? The face looks sort of familiar, but god, John, you used to have a different guy—”

“Ah, there’s no need to fuss about that,” John interrupted hurriedly, while Paul cast him a look. “But you know how it is, Agnes—the word’s mum.”

“All too well,” Agnes chuckled, and moved to get the door at the end of the hallway for them—Paul reached out and took John’s hand when they were led inside. As with most of the clubs, it was far bigger on the inside, blazing with light and ornate chandeliers dripping from the ceiling. Jazz music played from a live band up on the stage, where a person in an aquamarine dress and with a frosted blonde wig was singing along. Pushed off in the back where tables and chairs to sit down and enjoy drinks from the bar, but many of them were abandoned in favor of the spacious dance floor up front near the stage.

And it was full of men. Some dressed in their day clothes, others daring to wear women’s blouses or even dresses, some with makeup on—but all men. Paul’s hand tightened in John’s, and he looked over at him as they remained off to the side, away from the main hub of it all.

“If you want to leave…we can. But I know everybody who runs the place, they’ll make damn sure not a word of it gets out if we’re recognized.”

How harrowing it was, to have to worry about covering your footsteps like that, pretending you were never here—it would be easier to turn and go back, back up the stairs and into the night and put this behind him, but Paul thought again of how his time with John was short…in another year, he’d have another movie to do, he hoped, he’d have more work and more time to worry. But he wouldn’t have John. There was no way of knowing if they’d ever be here again together.

And so he took a deep breath, before he freed his hand only in the internet of removing his jacket and dropping it into a nearby discarded chair—when he turned around, he briefly clasped both of John’s hands in his, the more roughish but prominent grin spreading across his lover’s face at the gesture all he really needed to be sure that right now, this was worth it.

“Screw it for one night. Shall we go and dance?”

“We shall.”

They didn’t move right into the center of things, where the thick of the bodies truly was, but even being on the outskirts it was impossible not to pick up on the atmosphere of loose, casual freedom, drunk on self-expression as much as any gin. One queen with very heavy mascara and lipstick tipped Paul a friendly wink, but soon saw how closely John pulled in for a dance—and grinned, looking away. He was here with someone.

Paul was the better dancer, of course, they’d established this before with his prior training—but in a real setting, John could get by, or at least pretend to. They spun each other around like whirling tops with almost no real sense of who the lead partner was, just who held the other and where, but it didn’t really seem to matter. What did was being here, the music and the crowd’s shouts and laughter loud in his ears, the gin that was later passed around by a server strong and intoxicating.

Most of the music was characteristically upbeat, some of it winding down in order to give certain performers the chance to do an act—they would sit down towards the back, smoking and drinking then, and John’s hand would shamelessly, but naturally, find Paul’s thigh. It didn’t matter here.

But afterwards, the music turned slower again, a slow, syrupy trumpet warbling out a slower song as the lights dimmed a little, as people took their partners in hand to go sway for a while. Paul would have been content just to let his foot tap along to the music, but of course, John wouldn’t have it. “C’mon…indulge me. One more dance, McCartney. Then I’d best get you home before your parents notice you’re out past ten.”

“Quite the charmer, eh?” But Paul let him take his hand, leading him out to the floor, and they let their arms twine around each other as they moved slowly to the tune, revolving on the spot.

They were the same height, there was no real way for either of them to rest their head on a shoulder or a chest, but they could dance cheek to cheek this way, and being that kind of close was dizzying. Paul drew a faint breath, words he couldn’t quite seem to articulate at his tongue, but John was starting to sing softly near his ear—and of course, he knew the tune straightaway.

“‘When the moon winks through your window, oh darling, dream a pretty dream of me…when you close your eyes and sleep, oh darling, I hope it’s only me you see…”

“Stop that,” Paul laughed a little, wanting to swat his chest but having to content himself with jostling him a bit. “Honestly, you’re so caught up with that song—”

“It was a good scene in the film! And well, you were about to dance there…only pertinent, I should think.”

“It’s going to haunt me forever now,” Paul joked, but being here and feeling John’s body under his fingers, boozy breath near his ear, every part of his own self throbbing like a livewire—he knew it could never be the song itself that would haunt him. That would stay with him.

They were able to restrain themselves on the car ride back, but they weren’t going back to the set—the later start time tomorrow meant they could trickle in later, they didn’t have to be in their trailers, and John took advantage of that fact by finding a hotel room well out of the way, somewhere clean and nice but nothing too flashy, though truth be told, it didn’t matter at all. What did was finally spilling inside it and letting the door snap shut, hands barely able to peel enough clothes off by the time they staggered into bed.

It could have been minutes, hours, days—whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. By the time they had to stop, bodies too physically weary to go on, Paul’s hand was fisted in John’s sweaty hair, breaths leaving him in ragged, wet pants as his other hand clutched at whatever part of him he could reach. On top of him, John nuzzled at his neck, then nosed a trail down the plane of his body, leaving the tiniest, softest kisses.

“John…” Paul could only get out his name, the urge to say more bubbling in his chest, but none of it seemed like the right thing—in any case, John was trying to speak too. He kissed his chest, then looked him straight in the eyes.

“Come back to New York with me. Please, Paul, when shooting’s done…come back with me.”

 _Stay._ He didn’t have to say it aloud but Paul knew it was there all the same, and his heart felt so full, every part of him so full, that he felt like he could only let one word slip from his lips.

“Yes.”

“…yes?” John sat up a little, eyes widening in surprise, looking as if he hardly dared to believe it—and Paul swallowed once, relinquishing the grip on his hair to lightly stroke his face.

“Yes. I’ll go with you.”

And it wasn’t something said in the heat of the moment that he’d later come to regret—when the dawn woke and found them tangled together, when Paul had a clearer head but woke up to John kissing his shoulder, he knew full well that he still meant it. That until the movie premiered in summer, until the whole thing was well and truly over, he’d hold onto what he could.

“You…you still mean what you said last night?” John must have shelved his pride to ask him the question as they ate a breakfast delivered by room service, and Paul nodded, moving his hand across the table so John could take it.

“I do. When filming’s done in a couple weeks, I’ll go back with you.”

And in the moment, he believed it with every part of him. The car ride they took back to the studio was full of a nervous but giddy kind of energy, chatting about the movie, about the day ahead—but John wanted to mention his home too. He wanted to talk about the city that he loved, and Paul was content to let him, sitting back to let the simple thought of it wash over him. They’d go to New York together.

Before heading onto the set, they first had to go to their respective trailers to get changed and make it appear as if, well, they really hadn’t spent the night together. Paul was whistling a tune when they parted ways, light on his feet—that same kind of restless, jittery energy still propelled him forward to the other side of the studio where his trailer was.

It might have even seen him through the whole morning. But there was an unusual degree of activity going on outside the trailers as he approached them, and Paul approached a nearby production assistant as he looked around.

“Sorry, but is there something going on here? Only it looks—”

“Oh, there you are!” The man looked notably relieved to see him. “Only your girl couldn’t find you last night and we all had no idea where you had gone off to—luckily, she’s right nearby.”

“My…who?”

“Oh, Paul, _there_ you are!”

And he turned just in time to see a familiar head of red hair squeeze through the crowd, Jane appearing there and darting forward to neatly peck his cheek, the anxiety lines in her face smoothing over.

“I’m so sorry, I know I should have rang and let you know I was coming, but I thought I’d surprise you! We wrapped the show early, had to cancel a performance and it was awful, but I’ve got a big pile of other audition material just lined up. So all’s well that ends well, I suppose. But I got here last night, Paul…where had you gone?”

His completely floored, stunned silence seemed to be all the answer that she needed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first and foremost--an apology. this update is happening nearly a year (!!!!!) after the last one. life and a combination of working on other things truly kicked me in the ass with this one. mostly life. besides a couple other fics (and only one of decent length), i haven't written much at all since then.
> 
> i got stuck when it came to this story, plain and simple. i didn't have any motivation to keep working on it. i felt bad, because i knew people liked it and were eager for an update. but i just lost inspiration. as time wore on, i thought perhaps people had just given up on it and i didn't need to worry anymore--and maybe they had. maybe you have. i wouldn't blame you. it's an awful long time.
> 
> so i'm sorry for that, for all those no longer here. and i'm sorry to you who clicked on this again, who are shocked to see it's finally happened. it's not a long update, because this isn't the final chapter. i have one more chapter after this to end things (that i promise will not take me a year to put together). but in my heart, i always knew there was more of this story left to tell. i knew i couldn't let things dangle here painfully, forever. it just took so long to coax that out of me. like i said, this chapter is more of a bridge, to hopefully ease us all back into things before the real grand finale. i could never just attempt to drop an actual ending on you after neglecting it for so long. i couldn't.
> 
> and so i hope you enjoy this little bit, this penultimate chapter, that is more of a promise of more things and a final resolution to come. i never forgot about this story. thank you for sticking with it and with me, most of all <33

It rather felt as if Paul was watching the whole thing from some sort of other viewpoint, like he was seeing himself up on a screen as before. Somehow, someway, it was impossible not to feel a bit disembodied from the experience of having his girlfriend turn up unexpectedly on the set, entering the world that for so long, he’d blocked of her—at least in the physical sense. The pit in his stomach made him well-aware that this was hardly fair to her, that he should be _glad_ to see her, but he simply couldn’t get past the mental roadblock.

_And what was John going to think?_

When John was in a good mood, not just a relaxed or decent one, but a truly happy state of being, it seemed to shine through every pore of his being and illuminated all those around him. He was quick with a laugh, with a joke, eager to clap men on shoulders or tip winks to the lady assistants who scurried around the set, as if, much as he was also perfectly capable of projecting his more quarrelsome moods, it was his joy he wanted to share even more.

There was a pit in his stomach now he couldn’t disperse of, just thinking of that, as Jane strolled beside him and looked around the set with bright-eyed interest. The crew members were, of course, just as interested in her, and Jane turned to murmur in a low voice to him, “Well, it’s not _so_ different from the theater. But all the cameras are a bit new!”

“You, er…get used to them,” Paul told her, but he must have sounded a little out of focus—as indeed, he really had the whole time, and Jane was too astute to not notice such things.

She came to a halt, causing Paul to stop with her, and peered up into his face. “Is…everything all right with you, Paul? Only you seem quite jumpy.”

“Me? No, not at all…are you going to, uh…be OK today, then? Only it’s a long day of shooting, I don’t want you to get bored or the like.”

Jane gave a small roll of her eyes at that, an endearing little gesture despite everything. “Oh, I’ll be fine…it’s my first time on a film set, gives me a chance to look around.”

Of course, she’d want to be where the action was, there could be no reasonably expecting her to find somewhere quiet and settle in for the day, or even send her to go roaming around Hollywood itself—she’d want to be here. She’d want to be here, and that shouldn’t terrify Paul as it did.

By the time they made it onto the sound stage, John still wasn’t in sight, and this gave Paul time to seek out Brian with Jane in tow.

“Aha, so here’s the Miss Asher,” The director greeted her warmly, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry for all the fuss of last night, I do hope all crew members were aiming to be helpful to you?”

“Oh yes, everyone was lovely,” Jane said—there was a slight beat wherein she shot a quick look at Paul, who had taken the opportunity to scan the set for John (there was still no sight of him). When Jane gave him a small nudge, he realized she was waiting on him to do the polite thing and, as the intermediary, introduce her to his director.

“Oh, uh…thank you, Brian. For last night.” Last night where he’d be so intertwined with John he could sometimes hardly tell whose body was whose. “This is my girlfriend, Jane, all the way over from England with the Lepore Theater Company. And Jane, this is Brian.”

“Charmed.” Brian shook Jane’s hand like he might a man’s, but cast a knowing look Paul’s way. “Now, be honest, Paul—have you brought her around to see if you can find a role for her out here?”

“It might be a possibility,” Jane said smoothly before Paul could speak a word—more than capable of vouching for herself. “Hollywood’s quite a bit different, but I’m open to any chances.”

At this, Brian gave her a pleased nod. “Well, then…a go-getter such as yourself, I’m sure you’ll find the opportunities will be lining up outside the door with the morning milk. If you’d like, there’ll be plenty of room to sit with me and the assistants today. Your Paul’s quite the fine actor.”

“He always has been,” Jane said with warmth in her voice, but the double meaning wasn’t lost on her boyfriend—and the moment he’d been dreading finally arrived shortly afterwards, when loud whistling managed to cut through even over the general bustle and noise of the set. Dressed properly, John came striding along, pausing only to say something brightly to a crew member.

“Oh, there he is!” Jane had turned too, recognizing John as well. “Well, he looks shockingly rather like he does in the pictures—”

There was only time for a moment of eye contact, one last glimpse of a smile as John looked towards Paul—and then his eyes clapped on Jane too, standing beside him and holding his hand. He froze, as time seemed to for one long moment, the easy smile wiping right off his face. He had seen a picture of Jane before back in Paul’s trailer, he knew who this was, and his eyes slowly slid up to land on Paul again, almost desperately, horrorstruck, as if waiting for some signal that none of this was actually happening.

Paul could offer him no such comfort. The best he could do was make what he hoped could pass as a sort of apologetic face, while Brian smoothly spoke up beside them. “There you are, John—come and say hello to Jane, Paul’s girlfriend. Over here from England too.”

John stepped forward almost mechanically, and Paul wished more than anything that he could reach out to him, that he could do something to ease that stricken look on his face—John, like a cat, normally landed right on his feet, but this had apparently thrown even him too much.

“You didn’t say…your main squeeze would be flying out,” He said to Paul in a voice that might have been nonchalant, had it not sounded like it was really causing him pain. Paul winced, but Jane missed it as she briefly shook John’s hand as well.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mr. Lennon. I’ve seen a few of your films, it’s quite something to greet you in person like this.”

John might have been able to actually agree with that statement—though for a wildly different reason. In any case, he gave something of a twisted grimace that might have passed for a careless smile. “Charmed. Paul didn’t tell us we’d be having a guest!”

“Well, I’ll likely only be here until after the premiere. But then, you know, it might come down to how much I like Hollywood itself, after all.”

Before John could say anything else too snarky, Brian was summoning the crew members to order and telling them to wind it down. “You all can have a chat when we’re done for the day—Miss Asher, you’re welcome to have a seat.”

She squeezed Paul’s hand before going to do just that, and for half a heartbeat while Brian conferred with George, Paul was left to stand beside John, who still didn’t seem quite capable of movement. He finally turned his head in Paul’s direction, his voice dropping to a low hiss of a murmur leaving him in a hurried stream.

“Tell me you didn’t know she was coming—”

“I didn’t, John, I swear—”

“Places!” Brian called, and there was simply no time for any more conversation—Paul could only shoot John a desperate, pleading look, hoping to make him understand without words. But John had turned away, that frozen expression still on his face as if someone had struck him across it instead.

This was building up to scenes at the end of the film, everything that had once came to a head and boiled over now at the end of the line. Nick had been exposed as another worker for the Black Flag, the old criminal organization Cal had once been a part of, a group that now wanted him dead too for information he still had about a botched heist years ago. Cal could offer nothing new, nothing that would give any of the higher-ups any incentive to let him live, yet when it came down to it—when Nick had him cornered—he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger and shoot him.

It was in a little boat house by the water, this final intense scene. All the cameramen and the rest of the crew had to crowd in to the ramshackle building, careful to avoid the water and the motorboat that lay bobbing in it. It was hot and stuffy in here from the sun, but it was looking over at the familiar glint of red hair next to Brian in his director’s chair that really made it harder for Paul to breathe.

 _Pull yourself together,_ He told himself—he’d need it for the scene to follow. There was nothing to be done right now but act.

“So it was you,” Nick declared furiously, the gun held firmly in his hand—there had been a fight for it, and Cal had lost it in the ensuing scuffle. It was now turned against him as he shrank against the wooden wall of the boat house. “You botched that Chicago heist all those years ago, and now Brenner’s out for blood. Unless you got anything that might be capable of saving your skin, any information he might like to hear—think carefully about this one, Cal.”

Sporting a heavy bruise on one eye from the conflict, Cal still had the willpower to furiously glare up at his assailant. “You’ll never get a goddamn word out of me. You understand me? Never.”

But something in his voice shook—something that wasn’t Cal at all, but John. Nobody but John. And for as smoothly as things had been coming along in the production up until now, the change was notable.

Brian sensed it too, and lifted a hand. “Cut, cut…John, is something wrong? You seem a tad out of sorts today.”

John deliberately wouldn’t meet Paul’s gaze, plastering his best attempt at a smile on his face that far more resembled a pained grimace. “We’re all ship-shape over here, cap’n. Didn’t sleep very well last night, is all.”

“Well…the time for excuses like that has come and gone,” Brian reminded him crisply. “We’ve got mere weeks left to wrap filming, and hardly a month after that for any reshoots that need to be done. All the pandering’s long since over, are we clear on that?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Paul just caught John’s stiff nod—if he wasn’t feeling like picking even the pettiest of squabbles, then he was indeed not feeling quite like his usual self at all. And he knew why, of course.

They made it through the scene—but just barely. When Nick hesitated at the last moment, unwilling to kill Cal at the end here after everything they’d been through with the outside threat of Victor Prince, the main hero took a speedy departure. He had to thrust Nick into the wooden wall of the boat house, and Paul didn’t wonder if the force behind every take of that was applied with a bit more strength than was perhaps actually called for.

He hopped into the little speed boat stationed there then, to race into the sunset and on his way to freedom…but things didn’t quite end there for Nick. That was a scene for another day, though, and after several hours of retakes, Brian finally called an end to it.

“That’s enough for today. But I want everyone back here bright and early, first thing tomorrow morning!”

The crew was dispersing, the cameramen wheeling their equipment away and microphone operators fussing with their technology, and Jane was just getting to her feet when Brian looked back over her boyfriend’s way. “Oh, and Paul?”

He had been turning, looking to follow John, who paused just now on his way exiting the set—he was making a show of patting at his pocket for a cigarette, but could just as well be bluffing. Still, Paul turned back around to face his director, expecting to a lecture or advice or some sort. “…yes?”

“Try Carini’s over on 25th Street. I believe your guest deserves one of the finer meals this town has to offer.”

Jane gave him a smile at that, one that Paul tried to mimic. Yes, it was perfectly normal to take one’s girlfriend out to dinner during her first (official) night in Hollywood, but he felt like what he needed more than anything was time to think—ever since this morning, he hadn’t been able to be alone with his own thoughts. To try and sort through things.

What was there to sort? Jane was here, and he loved her, but…there was John.

John _wasn’t_ here, not on set, at least—looking around, it was plain to see he’d cut out fairly quickly. Paul’s heart sank at that, but Jane was already coming up beside him.

“What d’you say to that, then? I think dinner sounds nice. Pity John left though—I’d like to really meet this famous co-star of yours.”

Now he could be glad John had gone instead. The idea of sitting at a table with only the two of them, trying to keep forced, casual conversation going sounded like something out of a nightmare.

Dinner was awkward enough as it was. Paul did his best to listen to Jane, nodding along to all the stories she told him of her life while they’d been apart, and trying to do the same when she waited expectantly for his own side of things.

“It seems like things sorted themselves out with that John after all. I remember you calling me about him, just absolutely furious.”

So he had—Paul remembered that too. “Er, well…we just got on with our work, really. Like you said, that’s what mattered most in the end.”

Jane gave a little smile. “Well, I’m glad. It must be quite strange, to think that filming’s almost wrapped.”

“It is.” Stranger yet, to think of how only a day ago, he’d John he’d go with him when the movie was over. How could that happen now?

“Have you got anything else lined up for afterwards yet?”

“No, it…nothing like that.” He felt nettled, agitated, and his tone had more of a snap to it than he intended. Jane certainly caught it that, taking a small sip of her water and pointedly looking away from him.

“I see.”

Later on, their kiss goodnight was more on the forced side too. It was not exactly the sort of happy, trans-Atlantic reunion they’d both no doubt been envisioning—once.

But evidently, continuing to hang around set wasn’t something Jane had in mind for her entire stay here. She wasn’t there the next day, and when John was painfully late, he began to suspect that his co-star wouldn’t be either. He’d tried to go and visit him at his trailer last night (it had taken every shred of courage he’d ever possessed), but to no avail.

It was too late in the game for even Brian to keep his more even-tempered composure around, and he settled for pacing around the set while the rest all stood around, awkwardly waiting for their leading man. Paul thought he felt a lingering gaze on him, and when he glanced around, George quickly looked away and busied himself with a clipboard—but he had a faint suspicion he knew something was afoot here.

Just over a half-hour past call time, John came stumbling in…and that was truly the only word for it. He was in costume, at least, but with his hat missing and his hair a mess, and he couldn’t have walked a straight line if someone had held a gun to his head over it. He was, quite clearly, drunk.

“Preshent…and accounted for!” He declared, raising one hand woozily like it was roll call back in school. The slurring of his words almost made Paul wince aloud—John could never handle his alcohol well. “Sorry I’m so late…been hard to sleep these days, I need a little nip to keep me going—”

But the time for such follies had long since come and gone. Brian, indulgent, paternalistic, Brian, might have been willing to gloss over such antics or turn more of a blind eye to them in the early days of shooting, but they were down to the wire now. His clammy face veering towards maroon, he marched over to John nearly shaking with indignant fury.

“John _Lennon,_ this is absolutely unacceptable! You hear me? Unacceptable! We have mere weeks left to finish the picture, even less time to do an edit on it. And you show up on my set _drunk?”_

“Not…completely drunk,” John insisted around something of a hiccup.

“Yes, completely drunk! This is an absolute low of unprofessionalism, John. I expect better from a seasoned actor like you.”

Something in John’s face went horribly dark then, like a storm cloud scudding across an otherwise clear day. “Now…you listen here, Epstein. You may be directing this picture, but whose movie is it, really? It ain’t yours. It’s my name on the top of that playbill. I’m the reason people are gonna come see it. You can’t _talk_ to me like that.”

“Can’t I?” Brian demanded. “If I could remove you from the project, John, I just might. It’s too late for any of that now. But please, there are so few scenes left to do, we only need to finish—”

“Remove me? Cut me out? Nobody does that to me, nobody!” John fumed, leaning against a nearby prop table for a measure of support, and Paul could simply no longer stand by and watch this whole mess unfold.

“John, listen—Brian is right, we’ve only got so much left and we’ve got to finish the job.”

He had stepped over towards him, but it seemed to be the wrong move entirely—for at the sight of him, something more seemed to fill in John’s already water, unfocused eyes. “And you… _you…_ don’t tell me what to do. Not after…” But he trailed off, as if even now he knew he couldn’t reveal that much.

“I know,” Paul said quietly, something in his heart squeezing. “I know. But listen to me, we’ve got—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence—for just then, John seemed to snap, and he shoved the entire table of props down with an almighty crash. One of the assistants let out a small gasp and jumped back, but John didn’t appear to hear her or anyone else.

“I won’t listen to this! Any of this! You…all of you…”

But he seemed to be raving, nearly hysterical, and in a matter of moments, Brian had him ushered off set by some of the burlier crew members. John didn’t fight them for very long, all the energy seemed to drain out of him as he was hauled away, but Paul, who remained rooted to the spot, didn’t miss the last, blistering look cast his own way.

He didn’t think many of the others here had either.

“Right…right then.” Brian finally spoke up, smoothing back his hair. “Perhaps…we ought to spend the day editing after all.”

This was normally a process Paul enjoyed taking part in, or at least, he had during his last picture. It was fascinating to watch them take the reels of film and splice them together as needed, cut out what parts weren’t, add bit music to fit the scene. The behind the scenes aspect of it interested him, as it had when he did live theater.

But today he simply couldn’t focus. Like John, he was just too far gone.

He had no plans besides maybe wandering back to his trailer, suspended in misery, until he felt a hand gently touch his arm.

“Paul?” It was Ringo, who wasn’t filming a scene today, but had come to observe. “How about you come round to my new house? I’m buying this place in the valley, up on the hill. Might not be much, but maybe it’s better than being around set today.”

Gratefully, he seized onto the opportunity for some kind of distraction. “No, no…that sounds swell. Thank you.” There was a part of him that wanted desperately to seek out John, but knowing those fits, it might be for the best if he first let him sober up, at least. He couldn’t very well try and make peace with a drunk, belligerent John.

Ringo had his driver pick them up outside the studio, and away they went for the hills that loomed above Hollywood. For a short while, a measured silence billowed between them, and then Ringo finally spoke up.

“This picture…isn’t going as I had imagined it might.”

Paul had to swallow hard at that. “To tell you the truth—me neither.”

“It was supposed to change things for all of us, wasn’t it? Revitalize John’s career. Give you and me both a new image. And it’s a good film, you know—some parts are bloody brilliant. But somehow…it’s not what I expected.”

“I…I know what you mean.” He’d never counted on meeting John, to be sure—or anything that came after. He had hoped this project would be another jumping point for his career, and that was all. Instead, his heart felt like it hadn’t stopped aching in weeks, really.

“Do you?” Ringo didn’t ask any more, but that somber, almost sad blue gaze seemed to look right through Paul.

The house he’d chosen was overlarge (of course), and all white—it looked something like a castle, up here on the hill. It was nestled on a street of similar houses, the road lined with palm trees, adding to its picturesque visage. It wasn’t really in Paul’s taste, but he couldn’t say as much.

“It’s lovely.”

“Isn’t it? Snatched it up for a good price too.” As they climbed from the parked car, Ringo told the driver to wait on the street—they wouldn’t be here long.

The house wasn’t quite empty on the inside, but it certainly wasn’t fully decorated yet. There was some furniture here and there, and like on the inside of Ringo’s trailer, framed movie posters and playbills. They lined the hallway like something in a museum. Paul might have found that a trifle funny once, but nothing much seemed amusing now.

Their shoes echoed in what was otherwise a vast, empty space, as Ringo gave Paul a tour of the first floor and then up the winding staircase to the second. Besides the master suite, there were four other bedrooms, and Paul had to raise an eyebrow.

“Planning to have a lot of company over, then?”

“I certainly hope so. What’s the point of having all this space if not? I can’t settle down and have a family now. I’m not willing to slow down just yet.”

Of course, it would be different for him, for the both of them—as men, they enjoyed the luxury of not having to choose between a career and raising children, not really. Paul knew plenty of actresses who had had no choice but to commit one way or the other, and always regretted it somehow (not all, but most). He had thought there would never come a time where he would face any kind of crossroads like that. Not when he knew what the goal was, all along.

“If I had a castle like this, I’d almost feel obliged to fill it with people,” Paul made a weak stab at a joke, but neither one of them laughed. In fact, that normally easy smile on Ringo’s face had faded away in a shimmer of the glorious California sunlight streaming in through the window.

“I do. I worked hard for this house, Paul. The little lad I was in Liverpool, stuffing newspaper into my shoes to keep a bit warmer, could never have dreamed of this. Never. And I’m not going back. You understand that, don’t you? At the top, there’s only one place left to go, and I don’t intend to go down at all.”

“I…I wouldn’t worry about that,” Paul tried to assure him hastily. “You’re a huge star, Ringo, still huge—I don’t think you’ve even made it as far as you can go yet.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I’ve been in this business quite a few years longer than you have. And I think it’s only right to give you some advice about it. You have to know what you want, Paul. What you really want. And on the other side of the coin, you have to know what you’re willing to give up. It’ll never be so easy as having it all. Not really. We just have to choose what we can live without, and give it up.”

A kind of chill had settled over Paul’s spine. “Why…are you telling me all this now?”

“Your girl’s flown into town, hasn’t she? You know what they say about celebrity couples. Just a bit of hard-earned wisdom about it, is all.”

Despite himself, Paul rather felt like he’d slipped and missed a step going down the stairs. Ringo was talking about… _Jane?_ The person who’d only entered his mind in guilty, panicked thoughts for some time now? The shock must have been evident, because Ringo gave a little frown.

“What else did you think I was talking about?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. I understand what you mean, Ringo—I just don’t know yet how you go about making those choices. How you can live with yourself afterwards.”

Ringo shrugged, fishing a cigar from his jacket pocket and lighting it up. He drew a deep drag in, and then blew it out. “You don’t. You go and buy a bunch of fucking expensive Moroccan rugs instead and call it even.”

He couldn’t imagine settling for that either. None of this would make sense until he actually got to speak to John, who clearly wasn’t in a talking mood—not now, at least. And none of this would ever really be resolved until the movie itself was completed, which was just now starting to look like an issue in and of itself. They were tied to this project, tied to each other, and only when it was done could they be free of the other.

If that’s what they really wanted. Paul knew, deep in his heart and after so much time already spent anguishing over it, that it wasn’t.

And yet, he also couldn’t escape the stark, simple fact that Ringo was right. In this world, there was always something lost. Maybe that was what this place had taught him more than anything. Hadn’t John said something similar once, what felt like ages ago now?

You cut out parts of yourself to make it here. And then you slapped a new coat of paint over it and put on a grin for the newspapers. Ringo had decided to live with that. John hardly could any longer, and fought it.

And where was he? Where did he, Paul McCartney, box office darling but unseasoned rookie, who had so much to gain but so much to lose too, stand in all that?

He already knew. Deep down, he knew. But it was going to ruin him to admit it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once more, a tremendous thank you to all who stuck with this fic, and to those of you who just discovered it because of the recent update! stories don't exist without an audience. like i said in the last note, i knew somewhere in the back of my mind there was more of this one left to tell. it just took some time for the rest of me to catch up with that. but when i did, lord, did i ever churn this chapter out. it felt good to write again. and it feels deeply satisfying to finally put this fic to bed, so long after i first started it.
> 
> consider this also an open love letter to the culture of the early movies. i think now we tend to view those older ones as either charmingly antiquated or completely boring, faded black and white pictures and jerky acting on a screen (besides those who do make the cut as 'classic' films). what i also aimed to do here was highlight all the work that went into them, how the industry was buzzing with creativity and churning out movie after movie all the time, how much sweat and tears went into making those pictures. they are so very much alive. and of course, it's all about how much i love john and paul and how well they meshed together--imagining them in a different time, in a different industry, was so much fun. i believe they would have been outstanding, passionate creative partners wherever they went, and whatever timeline they would have landed in so long as they were together.
> 
> thanks again. i hope you all enjoy the ending. <3  
> \- jenn

Another near-ruinous, shamble of a day on set, and Brian was going to need to commit himself.

The process of reshoots was always tedious, simply going over lines that had already been spoken and scenes that had been ran through once more to get it all perfect. After this, all the film would be edited, and then boxed up to be sent off to various movie theaters all around the country—the premiere was hardly a month away. To say everyone was on edge on the set was a bit of an understatement.

For the time being, John seemed to have found a way to get his act together. At the least, there were no more incidents of showing up drunk or raving on set during the day’s shoot. But he was always very much in a hurry to leave at the end of the day, and he didn’t say one word to Paul unless it was dialogue from the script. It was, ironically, exactly what Paul would have wanted in the early days of their working relationship—nothing off-book, everything right to the point and focusing on making the movie.

Now, it was killing him.

He could finally stand it no longer. Now that principal photography was wrapped, the trailers that had been established for them were being cleared off the lot, swept aside to make room for whatever production happened to be moving in next. As such, the tear down of it all was causing just as much of a ruckus as initially setting the whole thing up had. The actors were no longer required to be on set, and according to Ringo, John had gotten himself tucked up into a little condo on the west side until he returned home to New York. A trip Paul had originally told him he would accompany him on.

It took all the remaining courage he had to ask one of the assistants what the address happened to be, and then get in the car to go there. On the way, he tried rehearsing things he might say, all that he wanted to, but it was no good, as if he was preparing for another movie role. He wanted to speak only from the heart here, and if it sounded the slightest bit memorized or canned, John would know.

The row of condominiums was neat but not overly so, elegant without being overstated—the perfect place for a star to hunker down for a while and wait for his next move. Paul thanked the driver and made his way to Number 364, then took a deep breath. What could he possibly open with, what ought to set the scene?

_How could you just keep ignoring me? You never gave me a chance to explain anything. I miss you. I’ve never missed anyone like I missed you._

All true, and all seemed lost as the doorbell rang and echoed within the house. He held his breath, thinking perhaps John was out, or that he wasn’t but he wouldn’t come to the door after all—and after a near-torturous wait, it swung open. And he was there.

“Oh, it’s you.” Flat, nearly disappointed. That stung, but not enough to get Paul to turn away.

“’Lo, John. Can I…can I come in?”

“I suppose you’d better, hadn’t you? We ought to get this out of the way.”

He didn't like the sound of that, but followed him inside to the living room. As it was only a temporary home, the furniture was sparse and minimalist, but the bar tucked into one corner of the room was fully stocked. John offered him a drink and Paul said no, but yes to the cigarette produced in the next moment. He needed something for the nerves.

John poured himself a glass of gin, took a measured sip, then turned around to face Paul. He was in slacks and his shirtsleeves, pushed up to reveal forearms dotted with faint freckles—how many times before had Paul traced his fingers over them. He could hardly stand the expectant, uncomfortable silence rising like city smog between them now, and had to break it somehow.

“When…when do you leave for New York?”

“In two days. Then I’ll be back for the premiere. It’s supposed to be at Grauman’s, Brian’s all beside himself.”

“I can’t believe it…it’s really over.”

“No. Neither can I.”

And Paul got the sense neither one of them were really speaking about filming the movie.

“John, please…I can’t take this any longer. You never even gave me the chance to explain myself.”

“What is there to explain?” John asked heavily. “Jane pops up and takes us all by surprise, I’ll believe that—but I know what she’s here to do now. If she starts making motion pictures too, you’ll be able to reign as the new King and Queen of Hollywood. Your public will love it, just lap it up. Don’t pretend like you haven’t thought of it.”

“I…I did wonder what Jane working here would mean,” Paul confessed. “But John…it doesn’t have to change things, don’t make me choose between her and you—”

John gave a mirthless sort of snort. “It’s never been about me and _Jane_ , Paul. Never. Right from the get-go, it’s only came down to me or you—the Hollywood you. If we keep things up, we run the risk of exposing both ourselves and ruining our careers with it. We’ve been over this a thousand times before. And me, I knew where I stood—but for you, it’s never been that easy, has it?”

Paul’s mouth seemed painfully dry, he was beginning to wish he’d accepted the offer for a drink after all—he could only manage a weak shake of his head. “John…I never wanted to lose you. You must understand that. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, not ever, and I don’t think I ever will again.”

That seemed to have struck a nerve with him, something in John’s piercing hazel eyes seemed shinier now, but he still made no move to come any closer to Paul at all. “But we talked about it, didn’t we? After the movie was done, didn’t we say? New York afterwards…that was a stupid dream of mine, the kind I haven’t had since I was just a kid and wishing for better things. More than I had. And I got all that, and look how much it’s given back to me.”

His tone was harder, more sarcastic, and Paul carefully went on. “I was that kid too. When I was nothing, when we had nothing at home. I knew in my heart that I had to get out of there. And now that I have—now that I’m going straight for the top, beyond the stars—how can I think of that hopeful little boy I was once, my dad, who’s so proud of me now, how can I think of all that and not want to keep going? I…I can’t surrender it all, John. Not what I’ve worked so hard for. But if…if there’s any kind of chance to keep both—both that and you—believe me. I’ll fight for it.”

John stared at him for a moment longer—and then he reached out, fingers touching Paul’s face, gliding over his cheekbone. His eyes fluttered closed and he turned his head towards that touch, and it suddenly occurred to him how badly he’d been aching without it.

“…but what’s left for us, then?” John finally asked quietly, and Paul opened his eyes—and how sad he looked, how troubled, nearly crushed him once more. “We could make a couple more pictures together—if this one goes well, the crowds would eat it up. But what would we have? More hiding in broom closets and prop cupboards, more hotel room meetings, more trying to act through a scene when I can’t look away from you? Is it ever going to be _enough?”_

“It’d be enough for me,” Paul insisted, bringing his hand up to squeeze John’s. “You would be enough.”

“Not for me,” John confessed, and slowly, he slid his hand away, Paul’s face feeling unusually cold where it just was. “I’ve lived a lie for too many years of my life already.”

“John…John, please…” Paul didn’t know just what he was pleading for, just what he was asking, something he couldn’t quite put into words—it wasn’t like him, who didn’t charge recklessly into things, who thought he understood what he was willing to surrender. Perhaps not, after all. Perhaps something of John had worn off of him in more ways than one.

“Listen,” John said quietly. “The premiere’s in another month. I’ll be back in the city for that, and maybe to start another fucking picture. When I get back…I want to see you one more time. We’ll both have had some time to…to think about things. And maybe then we can settle it. When this movie’s finally, really done, once and for all.”

Paul stared wildly at him, nearly surprised by what a cool, almost rational suggestion it was—and then it occurred to him that John had likely been so distant for a reason lately, so he could rehearse his own lines in private. They didn’t sound the least bit canned though, and there was no faking the obvious pain in his expression.

It wasn’t quite what Paul wanted to hear. But maybe there was a degree of truth to it, maybe finally taking a break from each other’s company would serve as a sharp indicator of which way they ought to go next. Maybe they both needed to clear their heads. He could see the logic in such a thing, and finally, managed to nod his head.

“If…if that’s what you want. Maybe you’re right.”

The corner of John’s mouth lifted in a tiny, tragic little smile. “…just don’t try and miss me too much. I already know I’ll be just hopeless.”

Before Paul left, John planted a soft kiss to his cheek, like one might a dear old friend they were parting with. “…I’ll see you at the premiere.”

“Be seeing you. I…sort of miss you already, if we’re being perfectly honest.”

“Oh, get out of here with that—that sort of thing will get you nowhere.” But he was starting to smile again, a sight that lifted Paul’s spirits…even though he couldn’t help but feel, as he returned to the waiting car he’d called for, that nothing much had been resolved at all. They’d simply put off the matter for another day, another time. At least they’d _talked_ to each other again, that was surely something…

Yet it seemed like even if Paul wanted both things, John wouldn’t see it the same way. How could they reconcile with that?

Paul had yet to move out and into a place of his own, though the new apartment stood waiting for him at the end of the week. Until then, he was still habituating in his trailer, and was one of the only cast members left on set as they began to tear it down. The place where John’s had once stood was empty now, the trailer moved away, and he looked at it for one long, sad moment when he returned to the studio.

His feet carried him back to the set itself, where equipment was being used to rip down the fake scenery and buildings that had been constructed. What could be reused had already been sent away to other lots, but most of it would have to go. Dust was flying in the air from all the activity, obscuring the view of the demolition, but all too soon, another set would rise like a phoenix from the ashes. The cycle would begin again.

It still felt strange, to stand here and watch them take down his past several months of life. The finished thing would all be preserved on the film, of course, that was the only real end product—but here was where he had lived and worked, here was where he had come into his own as his actor and lost some of his heart too. Watching them tear it apart felt like tearing off some of him too.

“It’s always a bit weird, isn’t it?” George, the production assistant, loped up behind him. “Everything you once worked so hard to build, gone just like that. I’ve worked on a couple sets now, and it still feels strange.”

“Oh…we did the same thing in the theater, of course, when one show finished its run. You’ve got to clear away the old to make room for the new,” Paul said bracingly. “D’you happen to know what they’re filming here next?”

“I can’t remember, some song-and-dance-type thing, la-dee-dah, and all that…no disrespect meant, of course,” George added hastily, and Paul gave a small smile.

“None taken. It _was_ a silly sort of movie, wasn’t it? But I loved making it.”

“And did you feel the same way about this one?”

Paul looked as some of the equipment pushed a big pile of broken lumber out of the way, what had once been used as the interior of a café scene. How quickly his pulse had raced, reacting to every move, every line of John’s in that scene.

“I’ll never forget this one. That’s a promise.”

“You’re good, y’know, Paul. The whole thing was. I’ve worked on some movies that were complete horseshit, and this isn’t one of them. I learned a lot myself.”

“Well…thank you for saying that. Perhaps…we’ll cross paths again, on some other set somewhere.” And he offered his hand for a shake, which George took after a pause.

“Maybe we will. Good luck in this town, in the meantime—don’t take any wooden nickels. And, uh…have a drink too. Not many people could have gotten through working on their second picture ever with John Lennon.”

He gave him one last craggy smile, and then walked off to speak to some more of the construction workers. Paul watched him go, remembering the time he’d nearly walked in on him and John—but he apparently hadn’t told anyone, and now, he truly doubted that he ever would. The secret, such as it was, was safe with him.

If this movie got him the kind of clout that it could, he’d arrange for George to work anywhere in the world he wanted to, any movie set he could dream of.

For this one was gone now, and with it in the debris lay so many tangible, physical reminders of what had transpired here. Lost now, drifting up in smoke and dust towards the cloudless sky over the studio lots, drifting off forever.

 ***

It had been exactly thirty-four days—but Paul would never say he’d been counting. What he’d been doing instead was keeping busy, selecting a more permanent home of his own and signing onto his next movie production. _As We Were In The Fall_ was more of a romantic kind of drama, requiring lots of heart-wrenching scenes and emotional acting…all things he could handle. He needed a new project, to put the last one behind him.

But it wasn’t over yet. Not until after tonight, after the premiere and the curtain closed on the screen. He and Ringo had been baiting the press for the past month on the home turf, John from afar in New York, and Brian was assured there would be an enormous crowd of both reporters and fans outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater tonight.

He hadn’t been nervous to face an audience of any kind in so long, but the nerves settling over him had little to do with that. Instead, they were all about just who was arriving back in town tonight.

A whole month had gone by to prepare for this, a whole month of agonizing over if he should try to call him, if wondering John might crack first and give him a ring instead. Neither of those things happened. And much as he wished it wasn’t so, he didn’t feel much closer to finding a solid answer over what had tormented them weeks ago. Or if he had, he couldn’t yet admit it to himself.

But he had to admit it to John. The whole of Los Angeles had felt emptier without him.

Jane would be accompanying him to the premiere tonight. In the past month, their relationship had distinctly grown chillier, with both of them taking separate lodgings and moving to find new roles. His girlfriend had done well for herself, landing a part in an adaptation of _Twelfth Night._ He had congratulated her for her first movie role with a special dinner, and both of them knew the routine with each other well by now—but perhaps it ought to be something more than just going through the motions.

“It’s Shakespeare, so of course I had an advantage,” A still-pleased Jane had said with a smile. “Though I’ve never played Viola before. I hope I can do her justice.”

“I’m sure you’ll be perfect,” Paul had told her, and he did mean it—one thing he had never doubted was Jane’s acting ability and her commitment to her work. It had been what first drew him to her all that time ago in the first place. But that was then, two young stage actors meeting on the traveling circuit back in England. Now they were both two fish in the huge fishbowl of Hollywood, and beginning to swim in different circles. He was sure they could both feel it.

He had the car pick her up tonight, at her own bungalow, and she emerged in a stunning dress the color of sapphires, her bright hair pinned up in a bun. “You look wonderful,” Paul said simply, and she gave him a small smile.

“And you look very handsome. Shall we?”

The drive to the theater under the glowing lights of evening in Hollywood was markedly silent. Jane’s white-gloved hand remained resting on the seat in between the two of them, yet Paul somehow didn’t quite feel like he could reach out and take it very naturally. She was looking out the window much of the time, and finally, she spoke aloud.

“I suppose it still takes some getting used to, doesn’t it? Seeing yourself up on a big screen, larger than anything?”

“Oh, yes. For the last movie…it definitely was like that. I hope I’m a little more used to it by now.”

“Is that why you seem so awfully jumpy, then?”

Paul frowned a bit. “…me, jumpy? Not at all.”

When Jane looked over at him, her expression spoke volumes of quiet disappointment. “That isn’t true at all, Paul. But then, I’ve had the feeling that you haven’t been quite honest with me ever since I first got into town. Maybe even since before that.”

Something in his blood seemed to run cold. “Jane, I…what in the world do you mean? I know we’ve been…distant lately, what with both of us throwing ourselves into new things—”

“Oh, please don’t try and act coy with me,” Jane said in a tone of great weariness. “You know what I mean, better than I do. Don’t behave as if I’m completely irrational here. Ever since you started work on _One-Way Ticket,_ you’ve been different somehow. Maybe it’s this place. Maybe it’s the people. I don’t know. But I do know that things haven’t been the same for us.”

It was the very same thing Paul had thought himself, that creeping feeling sneaking up on him. He had hardly seen Jane much at all recently, and if he was being quite honest, he had not missed her much—certainly, not in the way he missed John. His gut seemed to lurch at that with a white-hot kind of shame. What kind of act was that to put up? How could he have gotten so up in things he had all but forgotten about her?

“Jane, I…no, no, you’re right. I can’t and won’t deny any of that. But I do still care about you, you must understand that too.”

“Must I?” And there appeared to be something very sad in her eyes now. “I think I know what you really care about, Paul—or who. And I won’t sit idly by and turn a blind eye to it, or put on a front for the cameras, just for image’s sake.”

“I understand.” Yet something didn’t quite add up with that. “But if that’s true…isn’t being here with me at this premiere something of that? Something for the image?”

“Oh, well,” Jane gave a little shrug. “Yes, it is. But it’ll be good publicity for me, being here. And inevitably, when the magazines catch wind of our splitting up, that’ll cause talk too, just before filming gets underway for my movie. You see, Paul, I figured we could help each other on that end, one last time. But we’ll both be all smiles tonight.”

“Jane…you’re going to fit in perfectly in this town,” Paul told her resignedly, but it felt like there was no energy left in him to fight it—hadn’t they just been delaying the inevitable for some time now, in all honesty, perhaps before he’d even landed _One-Way Ticket?_ Jane could make a choice between her career and trying to go on with him. The blow landed, of course it did, but nor could he truly blame her. Not after everything.

The car was slowing down, and just up ahead, Paul could see the bright, flashing lights of the marquee outside the theater. Right there it was—the title, John’s name, and his. Up for all to see.

And there were certainly people gathered to see it indeed. The popping lights of the photographer’s cameras were evident as they pulled up to the curb, and the great chatter of people that soon swelled to a roar when they saw the car here. Tucked in the backseat, it was somewhat muffled, like being in a bubble, but Paul knew that bedlam awaited just a few steps away. When he glanced at Jane in the light streaming in the window, she looked cool and ready, and offered her hand to him.

“Come on. I do want this night to be a success for you.”

He took her hand, gripped it tight, and when the driver opened the door, they stepped out into the melee.

Flashing bulbs greeted them like lightning bolts, and what seemed like a hundred reporters and photographers at once began clamoring from either side of the carpet they walked up to the theater.

“Mr. McCartney! Paul, over here!”

“Who’s here with you tonight? How do you feel about this movie’s chances of success, Paul?”

“What’s been the most challenging part of working with such big names in the business?”

“Paul, this way!”

He could stop to answer a few questions, and he did, leaning over to speak to the reporters in question while eager movie fans tried valiantly to push their way through to him. At his side, Jane remained steady and charming, smile fixed on her face and lifting one hand in greeting.

Up ahead, Brian was standing with Ringo, George Martin, and several other producers, all of them dressed in suits like Paul. Brian was beaming, his face transformed under the glow of the lights, and Paul knew he wasn’t the only member of the cast and crew here who knew at what great expense the director had labored under to make this picture. Tonight was hard earned.

And then a great, excited roar seemed to swell from the gathered crowd as another car pulled up to the sidewalk, and without even needing to try very hard, Paul knew who it was. His heart felt like it was somewhere in the vicinity of his throat as he turned back, just in time, to see John emerge from the vehicle and step outside.

Truly, it was as if the rest of the world had slowed down, like an effect put over the film during the editing phase. Paul could still hear the shouts of the crowd, the pop of the cameras, but distantly, almost as if from underwater. The flashing lights of the marquee blinked red and purple lights down onto John as he stepped forward, as he clapped eyes on Paul too—and maybe despite himself, despite everything, he smiled too. One last radiant look that was all for him, before he turned to wave to the adoring audience.

Something in Paul seemed to sore (though admittedly, not on perfect wings) as he turned back to the crowd. But as he did so, he caught sight of Jane, who had looked in his and John’s direction just in time to see their own exchange unfold. It had hardly been much of anything, really, not to an outsider’s pair of eyes, but he also couldn’t mistake the scrutiny on Jane’s face, the expression there. And somehow, as had happened much earlier with George, he knew that she knew.

When he slid his hand into hers for the group picture, all of them posed in a row outside the theater, she made no protest—but he felt the slight squeeze, pointed, intentional. The camera-perfect smile was on Jane’s face as much as his, the both of them were very good at hitting their marks by now, after all. John was two people away from him, blocked by George Martin and Brian, but he was still the closest he’d been to Paul in a while now. It was impossible not to think of that.

“I do hope you enjoy the picture!” He called to the throng outside with one final wave as they headed inside, and one in the lobby, Jane dropped his hand and turned away. It was plain to see that for right now, she had had enough. He could hardly blame her.

Along with their first real audience outside of a screening room, all of them trooped into the theater itself and took their seats in the cushy velvet chairs. Brian fell behind to speak to a guest, and when he did so, John seized the opportunity to cut in order and place himself next to Paul. He lightly bumped against him, just one, saying jovially, “We’d better sit down quickly, son, the paying audience members are chomping at the bit here.”

It was so like him, it was so John. It was almost like nothing at all had interrupted them and their relationship, and he swept him one glowing look before they all settled into their seats. On John’s other side, Brian now anxiously wiped his brow with the handkerchief always in his pocket, and Ringo leaned over to give his arm an amicable pat.

“Now, now, Eppy—don’t you worry a bit. The picture’s great. They’re going to love it.”

But Paul knew their director wasn’t going to ease up even a bit until they had the final verdict here, and more importantly, the eventual box office receipts and newspaper reviews. Now that they were here, his own heart was skittering away too, anxious to see the final product in front of a live audience and to get their reaction. Sitting beside John was electrifying, however, and as the lights dimmed and the opening swell of orchestra music began to play over the credits, his co-star leaned his head down a bit to murmur in Paul’s ear.

“I missed you.”

It was one simple thing—and Paul responded by quickly yet gently squeezing his leg, an affirmation of the same. Their names rolled onto the black and white screen and applause broke out behind them from the crowd, and John gave that smirk of his.

**JOHN LENNON. PAUL MCCARTNEY. RINGO STARR.**

Paul had only experienced this once before, watching himself larger than life on the big screen. Before, it had been rather silly, he’d worn a big smile or an exaggerated pout half the time, when he wasn’t opening his mouth to sing a little tune. He had danced his way around the set and into the audience’s heart. This was completely different, the mood was completely different—and so was he.

Every scene set in shadow, rain pouring down on a dingy alleyway, glances sneaking through curtains to avoid being overheard…with the help of the suspenseful music in the background, it created a distinct aura of mystery and danger as Cal began to learn of Prince’s hit on him. And then there was Nick, clever, duplicitous Nick, who deftly wove his way around every scene he was in.

It was still so strange, so surreal. That was him up there—and it was all him who could hardly take his eyes off of John much in every bit they had together. Looking at himself now, it was so blatantly obvious to see how he had been feeling.

The audience reacted well, giving quiet ripples of laughter at some of the snarkier, funnier bits of dialogue and gasping at dramatic cut scenes. Even when he wasn’t acting live in person in front of them, controlling the pace as he went along, Paul still had a good vibe for picking up on a crowd’s mood from his stage days. This one was clipping along at a good rate.

It was almost an hour in, only a short time before the reel had to be changed and intermission was given, when Paul felt a deliberate nudge at his leg. He looked towards John beside him, who gave a tiny nod of his head in the direction of the aisle. He showed him a splayed hand, five fingers, and then, whispering apologies to those beside him, excused himself from his seat and exited the row.

Paul watched him go, pulse pounding in his ears. After the brief disruption, everyone had gone back to gazing, riveted, at the screen. Everyone but Jane, who had looked over at John’s departure and now stared at Paul in equal parts shock and disbelief. Yet his mind was already made up, he knew that much. It had been too long.

He waited just over five minutes and then, just as the train crash sequence was unfolding, he too muttered an excuse and parted from the row, ducking as best as he could to not block the view of the picture. He walked quickly up the aisle, leaving the movie behind him as he stepped into the red and gold interior of the theater’s lobby. It was empty now, everyone still inside, but before too long it would be flooded with people during the intermission.

John wasn’t inside, but smoking a cigarette outside the theater in the glow of the lights. Paul pushed open the doors and came up behind him, and, resuming a conversation that had only partially started earlier, said quietly, “I missed you too.”

He turned, and there was so little distance between them—Paul wanted to close what remained and kiss him here and now, on the street where anyone might see, but they both seemed to understand it couldn’t happen…though John’s eyes lingered on his face far too hungrily for him to believe he wasn’t thinking the same thing. It started a slow warmth in his body, a heat that would never be quenched otherwise.

John exhaled some of the smoke, and his lips curled into a softer, warm smile. “What I’d like to do to you now. What I haven’t dreamed of. How’s that little girlfriend of yours then, huh?”

“Oh.” Paul’s sense of mingled joy and anxiety deflated a small bit at that. “She’s, uh…well, she’s just fine. Got a movie deal of her own now. But tonight’s all about publicity, you see—we’ll be done afterwards. Properly.”

“Is that so? How…interesting. And is your leading lady much distraught about it?”

“No,” Paul admitted. “She isn’t, and I’m not really either. We did love each other, once, it’s just…different now. I have to believe it’s the right thing for both of us.”

“And what’s the right thing for _us?”_

They had reached the crux of it, the true heart of the matter now. Cars rumbled past on the road, somewhere, a fire sire wailed, the hum of the city and of people was still around them—yet somehow, Paul also had the sense like they were the only two in the world, like when they had climbed that mountain embankment or watched the desert sunset together while filming on location. An endless blur of color and sound all around them in this blazing city, and Paul only saw one person.

He responded by taking John’s hand and steering him into the alley beside the theater, hardly the most desirable of spots, but the only one nearby where they could snatch a moment of privacy. When they kissed, it was long and hard, consuming—John’s hands fisted in his hair, Paul wanted to pin him to the brick wall, but as he leaned his forehead against his in a ragged moment to catch his breath, he knew what he had to say.

“You know what it has to be, John. For both of our sakes. But you also need to know that I’ve never loved someone this much before. Never. You’re the most stubborn, irritating, and bloody brilliant person I’ve ever met—and probably ever will. You gotta know that much too.”

John’s eyes seemed shinier than usual in the glow of the lights, but his voice didn’t waver when he spoke. “I…I understand. In this world, there’s only one thing for it, isn’t there?” He took a quick yet deep breath, like he was steeling himself before diving underwater, and his fingers stroked Paul’s hair for a moment. “I thought about it all the time while I was gone. I saw you everywhere. But I knew…I know you had been right, all along. There’s no real future here for us, ‘course not, I was being stupid—”

“No, you weren’t. I don’t want that to be true. I’ve been honest with you from the get-go, and I’ve told you how far I’m willing to go. I’m sorry it can’t be any more.”

Now John’s faint smile was troubled, sad. “You wouldn’t be McCartney without all that. There was so much I thought of doing…New York, Key West, hell, even riding a couple of damn horses on the beach like you said—but that’s all just a dream.”

“Mine too. But it’s a good one.”

John leaned forward and kissed him again, and they both sensed it this time as much as their bodies were desperate to tangle together more, touch more skin. This was a parting kiss. This was farewell. No matter what they could have from each other, it would never be enough. They could both have just about anything in the world they possibly wanted except one thing that mattered more than anything.

Nearby, they could just hear the sound of the theater doors opening and voices chattering—it was intermission, and a lot of the audience had stepped outside for a cigarette of their own. The time they’d been able to snatch here was up. They parted quickly, and John’s eyes raked over Paul’s face desperately, as if trying to memorize it one last time…and Paul had to briefly touch him, stroke his face.

“Let’s see this through, Johnny. It’s still a damn good picture.” And nothing would change that. No matter where their relationship went in the future, their work would always be here, a testament to a time where they’d shone together like two stars of their own.

John nodded, and this time, Paul went first. He straightened his suit jacket as he walked back into the fray, squaring his shoulders, prepared to put on his public face once again—but something had broken off inside him. A part of him that, like John had said once, he had to cut out.

It was harder to focus then, as more people swarmed to ask questions, to praise the film so far. None of this landed on deaf ears, he was glad to hear it all, but it seemed to be coming from the end of a long tunnel he couldn’t quite reach.

Brian was overjoyed, nodding and smiling along to the reporters’ questions, obviously in his glory. Nearby, George Martin was speaking to a crowd as well, but he happened to catch Paul’s gaze—there was a measured, contemplated look, and then he inclined his head in a slight, appreciative nod. High praise, coming from him.

Jane didn’t look at him once when they all settled back into their seats for the second half of the film. She kept her gaze rigidly up on the screen, and in his heart, he knew he was lucky if that was the worst she was going to do.

He could see it too, he knew. How electrifying they were together in the picture, always bouncing off one another, never missing a step. It was incredible to watch.

The film’s climax finally soared to an end, with Nick unable to kill Cal and the latter speeding to safety. He returned to his apartment to collect his belongings and then sped off for the West coast, putting distance between himself and his whole situation. Yet when he checked into his hotel room, finally feeling safe at last…

There was a simple calling card folded on his pillow. Cal looked at it for a long moment as the music came to an eerie, suspenseful build—and then, just as he was about to pick it up, there was a knock at the door.

Cal opened it, but you couldn’t see who he was speaking to from the doorway. You only heard his last final, resigned sigh. “I suppose this is it, then.”

And then the screen went dark. For a short, suspended moment, it hadn’t yet sunk in with the audience that it was over.

And then they were on feet. The swell of applause was like thunder, reaching up to the ceiling and echoing all around them. Whistles pierced the air over the din, as everyone behind the cast and crew got to their feet for a standing ovation. Beaming the widest Paul had ever seen him, Brian was the first one to stand up and turn to face them.

The others did the same, and Paul remembered a time where the sound of an audience’s rapturous applause meant the stage lights were shining down on him for the curtain, as they all took their final bows. Beside him, Jane leaned in to address him over the noise.

“It was a brilliant picture, Paul. Truly. You were wonderful.”

“Thank you, Jane,” He told her—and they both knew there was far more in there than for just her comment about the movie.

He was floating on air, basking in the triumph of a crowd enraptured. Unable to help himself, he tried to seal a glance over at John, wanting to share this moment with him, the unabashed glory and pride, but to his shock, his co-star was wading free of the row and making his way up the aisle once more. More than one person noticed him go and it obviously looked strange, but this time, Paul didn’t think about that sort of thing.

He just fought his way through it all, running after John, who was stepping outside and to a waiting cab. A couple reporters tried to besiege him on the way out, but John pushed past them. “Yes, we’re all happy, so damn happy, indeed, with how the movie turned out. Print _that_ in your papers.”

“John!” Paul called, bursting free of the doors, and the reporters all swiveled to him instead. Standing at the end of the long carpet that had been rolled out earlier for them and was still there, John stared back at him with one hand on the door handle of the car. He didn’t know what to do or say now, nothing seemed quite right, and with camera flashes in his face, it was difficult to think.

“When will I see you again?” He finally managed to ask, and John gave him a crooked smile.

“Next time you’re in New York, look me up.”

Paul nearly tripped over his name then, trying to talk to him again, but the reporters were closing in and John was stepping into his car. The cab slunk off into the night, leaving nothing but engine exhaust behind it, and he could only stare after it for a short moment before he had to turn back to the press.

He had a job to do, after all.

***

The reviews came pouring in, headlines blaring about the triumph and suspense of Empire Pictures’ newest production. Perdictably, John was praised to the heavens for his portrayal of Cal, with several magazines asserting that an Academy Award nod might be in his future. Ringo fared well too, and Paul…well, every time he checked a new review, he held his breath. But he needn’t ought to have worried.

_“McCartney plays the role of sinister, shady Nick Hurlock to perfection, a welcome departure from his previous role…”_

_“…any doubts we may have expressed about McCartney’s ability to transform characters so severely were grievously unfounded…”_

_“A shining achievement, for all the darkness of the film. McCartney tranforms as Nick, carrying the picture along its speedy, dangerous course like a train bound for an impending crash…”_

_“The wild success of their first movie as a double act leaves us wondering—will Lennon and McCartney partner up again for another picture? In this reviewer’s estimation, the industry as a whole could do no better.”_

He clipped all of the truly glowing ones and mailed some of them home to his father in England. With the money earned from the film, he’d be able to have Jim finally come and visit him here, a prospect that gladdened him. Despite the rave reviews, the pleased film studio, the increased volume of cash in his account…not even all that could alleviate a heart that still grieved. Was still wounded.

Jane had left, of course. They buried what was left of their relationship with as much dignity as they could, and she’d given him one last parting kiss on the cheek before leaving his apartment for good. It seemed very quiet for a time afterwards, but he mourned it all alone. By everything he’d heard from industry friends, she was absolutely shining on the set of her first picture, and he made a note to send her flowers before its eventual premiere.

He also heard that she had started seeing someone else then, a set designer for the studio. It didn’t sting him to know that.

Ringo kept in touch, swinging by for another night on the town before he too headed off for a holiday in Spain. “The sky is your limit now, Paul,” He had said to him with a beam. “And don’t you forget it, understand?”

It seemed he was right about that. Paul was already signed on to his next project, but it didn’t stop other directors and even other studios from sending him telegrams and letters, jamming up Lee Eastman’s office with phone calls asking for a screen test with him. “This is exactly the kind of break you needed,” His agent told him over a call, an obvious smile in his voice. “Now everyone can see it for themselves. I’m going to have to hire more staff to keep up with it all.”

Yes, his public and professional life was spiraling to new heights, the edge of a high precipice that Paul couldn’t bring himself to look down over yet. But in the back of his mind, he still knew it was there, he knew one wrong move or one terrible film and he could lose his footing and fall. There was no shortage of talented, desperate actors in this town, and he had to capitalize on his popularity while it remained.

Deep down, somewhere inside, he wished there was someone here to share it all with him.

It finally came in the form of a letter, about a month after _One-Way Ticket_ was released in general theaters. Paul saw the scrawled signature at the bottom before he read the rest of it, so his stomach was already doing cartwheels when he sat down to read the whole thing.

A clipping from a paper was attached, one screaming about the chemistry of the movie’s two leads. In ballpoint pen, John had written over top of it: _The kings of Hollywood! Now I know why Astaire and Rogers stay together. Enjoy this. Always on my mind._

He kept it on his desk at home.

It was almost a year out of the film, as production on his fourth picture was wrapping, when Paul got a call from Lee’s office. He was still on the movie set, overseeing some of the editing for a final scene, when someone in the production booth called for him.

“Why am I not surprised to hear you’re still on set?” Lee asked him when Paul picked up, and he gave a grin he couldn’t see.

“First one here, last one gone. I can’t really resist.”

“Well, I’m hoping I’ll hear a similar thing in a moment. Empire’s pitched another movie idea my way for you. _Sidewalks,_ it’s called, about a traveling street artist who witnesses a murder and has his life changed. They want you for Elliot, the artist. And they’ve talked to John Lennon about co-starring as Detective Fred Marion. They want to film in New York, where he’s at these days. Apparently, he was very insistent that he’ll only do it if you come onboard too.”

It was like he had missed a step going downstairs, for a moment, he couldn’t say anything. _“Next time you’re in New York, look me up.”_ How many times had those last words John spoke to him echoed through his mind? He hadn’t gotten out there yet, of course, and John seemed determined to avoid Hollywood for the time being…but the film was going to him. It was going to him, and he knew what this offer was. An invitation, yes. But also a challenge. An absolution.

He thought of those days skulking behind one of the canvases on set to steal hurried kisses, of lingering looks exchanged over scripts, long nights drinking wine in each other’s trailers and just enjoying the existence of each other, luxuriating in it. Paul had thrown himself into his work to keep himself busy, so as not to linger on it all, and was often so exhausted when he went to bed that there was little time for tossing and turning with his thoughts—but they confronted him now.

Paul knew what he had given up. But he also knew now, poised on the edge of this cliff, that he was ready to take another jump. How could he not be, when there were wings on his feet?

“I want to see some of the script first. But tell them…I’ll do it.”

“Another Lennon-McCartney picture, eh? Maybe we can try to get you top billing this time around, but I bet Lennon’s agent would pitch a fit. Better just hope lightning can strike twice in the same place, then.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Lee. On that much…I don’t have any doubts.”

 

* * *

 

  **New York City, 1964**

For a man who had spent the better part of a couple decades with cameras trained on him, Leonard Harnish of ABC News found that John Lennon seemed surprisingly awkward in front of the crew at first. Perhaps it was simply the unconventionality of having them in his home, but he’d agreed to do the interview from his New York penthouse months ago, and so here they were.

It was unsurprisingly spacious, and the stark-white walls and furniture gave it a bright but almost alarming appearance—the influence of his second wife, another marriage that was gone now, but the penthouse remained. And it seemed that Lennon, for all that he had done in his life and for everything he has a reason to hold onto, was a person not well-versed in letting go of the past.

“Can I get you gents anything, then? Tea? Scotch?”

“We’re fine, thank you. It’s wonderful to be here, Mr. Lennon.”

“Oh, you don’t have to try and butter me up, son. I’m too old for that sort of nonsense now.”

Indeed, John was past sixty now, another decade reached. The auburn hair was thinning and noticeably flecked with grey, his face lined, and he now had to wear glasses all the time—but the eyes behind them were as sharp as ever. Settling down on the couch opposite Harnish and his camera crew, he held himself with supreme indifference still, as if this all was a joke only he knew the punchline to.

The shelves behind him were lined with clutter, mostly books, but vinyl albums too, and a picture here and there. One grainy black and white photo showed John on a horse, standing in the surf at the beach. He was grinning from ear to ear at whoever was taking the picture.

The film started rolling. For the first time in years, John Lennon, a legend of the silver screen, was on camera again.

“Mr. Lennon, it’s truly an honor to be welcomed into your home like this. As you might be aware, your figure still looms large in Hollywood’s memory.”

“Ah, I’m another relic, same with so many of us from back in the day,” John gave a sardonic chuckle. “It’s a new generation now. I don’t much like feeling like the old fogey waxing nostalgic on his glory days, you’ll have to forgive me.”

“But it’s precisely some of that we’re here to discuss. This year marks the thirty-year anniversary of your film _One-Way Ticket._ It was an absolute box office smash, and in retrospect, many hailed it as one of the first true examples of the film noir picture that would become so popular in the next decade. It’s a true classic.”

“Between you and me, old boy, I felt it should have won the Oscar that year—but Gable, god rest his soul, went and nabbed it instead. That was a good picture too. It was a decent year for the movies, wasn’t it?”

“Of course,” Harnish agreed enthusiastically. “It was a good decade truly, before the code, and…before the war.”

The mention of it hung awkwardly in the room, both interviewer and interviewee knew that John’s outspoken criticism of America’s involvement (or lack thereof) in aiding the Allied forces and subsequent handling of the whole enterprise had earned him a severe black mark in the public’s eyes, from which he’d never quite recovered. His movie roles after that were few and far between, but not so the acidic newspaper articles and a book or two that he published. “Nothing,” He was reported as saying in 1947, “is ever going to completely shut me up.”

“And it gave rise to so many beloved stars,” Harnish pressed on quickly. “Not just in front of the camera, either—did George Harrison really work as a production assistant for that film?”

“He did. Has his own company now and everything, I’m sure you’re aware. But we’ve all got to start somewhere, don’t we?”

“As you started in vaudeville, just moved out from the Midwest. And as your _One-Way Ticket_ co-star, Paul McCartney, started across the Atlantic in theater.”

They had reached the sticking point of the matter. John shifted a little on his couch. “Yes, he did. And now he owns a theater back there too, as I understand it.”

“You went on to make three more movies together, bringing the total up to four. Some say you two were one of the most popular on-screen pairs of the era. What do you think was the key to that success?”

John paused, gave a little shrug. “It’s all about that connection. Understanding each other, you know? You can always tell who’s faking it on screen and who’s not, because there’s only so much you can do to act around it. Paul and I were lucky in that we just clicked. And the audiences, obviously, loved it. It only made sense to do a couple pictures together after that.”

“Too right. And of course, he hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down since then! Did you see the last film he was in?”

Harnish got a small laugh at that. “If I went to see every movie Paul appeared in, I’d be spending most of my money on tickets. Once he got his feet wet, he dived right in, so to speak…and hasn’t come up for air since.”

“Do you ever wish perhaps you’d done the same thing? That you might still like to be making pictures?”

“Oh, no, no. I got very fed up with the whole thing after a while, as you can imagine, Leonard. I found other ways to keep myself busy. I could only play pretend in front of a camera for so long.”

“But you did it brilliantly. Do you ever watch any of your old movies?”

“Only if I’m trying to put myself to sleep,” John cracked, and laughs rippled all along the set. “Some of them are complete trash. But some are really quite good. The one you’re here to talk about being one of them.”

The interview went on at some length then, Harnish asking about both _One-Way Ticket_ and the making of it, his opinion on the movie industry today (not good, but not bad either), and his future plans.

“I like a nice, quiet life now. I take walks in the park. I eat at my favorite Chinese restaurant once a week. Own a couple cats. Just a retired biddy, I’m afraid. But I think I’ve reached a point where it’s safe to rest on those laurels of mine.”

As the filming crew packed up their equipment once everything was wrapped, Harnish firmly shook John’s hand. “Mr. Lennon, I can’t tell you what a joy this was. I watched your movies when I was just a boy. To interview you was truly fascinating.”

“I’ll look out for it on the television, then,” John said amicably. “And believe me, Leonard, the pleasure’s all mine.”

Unlike Ringo, John had never taken to hanging old posters and promotional materials from his movies on the walls—but nor did that mean he’d forgotten them all. As he’d shown Harnish and his crew, he had a room in his apartment devoted to props and photo albums from almost every feature he’d been in. He didn’t venture inside it too often (that was a bit too depressing), but it was comforting to know it was all still there, remnants of a past life.

His Academy Honorary Award (for lifetime achievement) he used as a doorstop.

John ventured into the room now for a minute or two, reflecting on it all. How strange, to look at that beaming young man with the hawk nose posing on a sound stage, mugging it for the camera. “Oh, Christ, Lennon,” He sighed, to no one in particular. “You _are_ getting old.”

Night was falling across the city, the lights outside gleaming into his living room. John flicked a lamp on, and was just thinking he might settle in with a cup of coffee and a novel when there came a buzz to indicate someone was trying to come up.

For a moment, he paused, befuddled—and then he remembered a conversation from a week ago. An old friend was in town.

When he opened the door, Paul McCartney himself stepped inside, a bag slung one over arm of his expensive jacket. Like John, his hair was greying and he had crinkles around his eyes that hadn’t been there once upon a time, but he still retained that baby-ish sort of face that had so endeared him to the world all those years ago. That expression that had so enamored him to John.

“Hello, John.” His voice was so warm. Three decades, four movies, countless nights and countless arguments together—and that never went away.

It had certainly not all been smooth sailing. They were on and off over the years, as two people could only be, but one way or another, they found their way back to each other. And when they were in the same city, it was inevitable they’d meet up again.

“How did the interview go?”

“Swimmingly. When are they going to make you run the gauntlet for it?”

“In two weeks. It’s all but impossible to find a time to sit down now, they should have came out to see me when I was in Arizona—but oh well. I needed the rest, anyway.”

He had that in spades out on the ranch he owned in the red desert of Arizona. It had surprised John not at all to read, in a magazine of all things, that he’d bought it for his then-wife and growing family. His three grown children were all over the world now, but the beautiful home in picturesque country, as he had dreamed of, remained.

“Amazing how people still want to beat a dead movie to death even more, isn’t it?”

“I still think it’s quite good, actually. Don’t you?”

“You know I do.”

They exchanged a small, glowing smile at that. It had been such a long time since those days of passion, both on and off the set, but they both still remembered. Remember and perhaps quietly grieved, somewhere.

After they were settled in with their drinks, Paul finally brought out the bag he brought with him. “Oh, Johnny, you need to see this—I couldn’t believe it when I clapped eyes on this in the record shop.”

He produced an old, faded album that declared in splashy font across the front that it contained various hits from classic movies. John snorted, but already, he had an idea where this was going.

“Honestly. Bet you stole that right from the ten-cent bin.”

“Just wait.” Paul got up and walked over to the record player John kept on top of his cabinet. He placed the record down and set the needle on it, and after a few moments, an old, slow, syrupy jazz tune began to play.

“Oh god!” John mocked a groan, then laughed. “Oh, _god._ How long has it been since you’ve heard this little number?”

“It haunts my dreams sometimes,” Paul said good-naturedly. “But y’know…I’m fond of this one too. My first film.”

“The first time I saw you on screen too,” John added softly, “All that time ago. I know you were something then.”

Paul looked back at him, and his smile was softer now, sadder. “D’you…still remember all the words? I do.”

John sighed, took a sip of his drink before getting to his feet. “I think that I do. Didn’t we dance once?”

They had. And so they did now, John taking Paul’s outstretched hand before they came together, swaying slowly in a circle to that silly, wonderful song.

_“When the moon winks through your window, oh darling, dream a pretty dream of me…when you close your eyes and sleep, oh darling, I hope it’s only me you see…”_

Back on the mountainside, all of Hollywood a sprawling, glittering map in the evening below them. In the jazz club, surrounded by others like them yet caught up in their own tiny world. A time as long gone as the black and white pictures were.

And somehow, still here. Still here, blooming in between them now in the gathering dark, as John let his cheek lean against Paul’s, as he hummed along to the lyrics.

Outside in the sky above, the stars were shining down on this other city of light. But in here, there was something brighter yet.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! look out for the next part, and you can also find me on tumblr at [glimmerkeith](http://glimmerkeith.tumblr.com).


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